


Helpless

by Kedreeva



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Sex Pollen, Wolfsbane, berica (minor), past noncon mention (kate/derek), scisaac (minor), sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-17 02:58:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 72,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kedreeva/pseuds/Kedreeva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hybrid mutation. Human consumption heightens senses and raises body temperature. Prolonged use may cause skin to exude a scent which seems to mesmerize werewolves, rendering them helpless. Application to a werewolf will render them to a state of suggestibility. Control may be exerted by nearby humans. Studies suggest effects last several hours."</p><p>In which Stiles is the one affected by wolfsbane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written with permission from the prompt: neverafuckgiven.tumblr.com/post/29370223386

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was originally written after season 2 ended and before season 3A aired. It was meant to explain the missing time we were told we would get between 2 and 3A, while leaving everything where I found it (ie, there are a LOT of loose ends/open ended things meant to be picked up by canon S3A) so it could have happened pre-3A. So just be aware, the story was compliant with what we knew after S2, but may not be compliant after 3A.

Stiles picked at the skin of his apple, peeling off sections and making a tiny pile of red scraps in the corner of his lunch tray. He wasn't in the mood for apples, but they were less sticky than oranges and he'd paid for a full lunch anyway. The night before he'd been up late, reading, researching. For once, it had nothing to do with the messed up circus of werewolves and kanimas and danger his world had become. For once it was about American government, about the branches of legislature and certain laws that had been passed, because he was still a student and he still had papers to write and turn in and get A's on so that he could sleep at night knowing his whole _entire_ life was not crazy.

"My father says Gerard found a new strain of wolfsbane," Allison said, almost slamming her tray onto the table beside him. He took a moment to mourn the sense of normalcy he had been privy to for the extra three minutes it took his friends to purchase their lunches.

Scott was sliding in across from him, giving Stiles the 'save me, she's lost it' look. "He says it can make a werewolf helpless."

Stiles scoffed. "Isn't that kind of the point of _all_ wolfsbane?"

Shrugging, Allison unfolded her napkin and picked up her plastic fork. It was going to be a tough fight against the goo that was supposed to be lasagna. "I got the feeling he meant something else," she told him. "Like that-" and here she glanced to where Lydia and Jackson sat, at the opposite end of their table, and lowered her voice. "Like that it made them... able to be controlled. Like you-know-who was."

Stiles sighed, took a bite of his apple, and glanced down the table at Jackson, who was paying none of them any mind. He was glad that the business with the kanima had been sorted. They weren't on speaking terms with Jackson anymore, at least they hadn't been for almost two months now, but it seemed like Lydia was talking him around. Coaxing him, Stiles thought, but the idea of anyone _coaxing_ Jackson made his skin crawl.

"So, does he have it?" he asked, focusing back on Allison.

"Does who have what?" Isaac asked, slipping into the seat beside Scott. The two peered at one another's trays, traded items, brushed shoulders. It was weird, seeing them close, like real packmates. Stiles wasn't used to the affection the wolves all had for one another, not after all of the standoffish behavior, posturing, bickering.

"Allison's father told her that Gerard has found some mind-controlling wolfsbane," Scott said absently, earning him a Look from Allison.

"Well he didn't say that, exactly," she amended. "But he made it sound pretty bad. If he gets his hands on any of it... I mean, it's supposed to be extinct, because the werewolves launched some kind of crusade to destroy it all years ago..."

"But...?" Stiles asked, hearing the word she had left off of her sentence.

"But, he left on a plane last night, and dad thinks it's because he found where there might be some left."

"Geezus," Stiles said, shaking his head. Scott and Isaac both paled. "If he finds it..."

"Yeah," Allison agreed. She shot a worried glance to Scott, who tried to give her a smile in return. He looked like he was going to be sick. Controlled? By _Gerard?_

"Well... surely there's record of it somewhere, right?" Isaac pointed out, looking between Stiles and Allison. "Derek's started moving things from the station back to the house now that it's fixed. Books and things. Maybe there's something in one of those?"

Scott laughed, and then realized Isaac was being serious. "What, really? Are we just going to go pawing through our alpha's books?"

"With his help," Isaac said. "Of course."

"Oh." Scott looked guilty and turned his attention toward his plate. Of all the betas, he'd had the hardest time adjusting to trusting Derek, to including their alpha in their plans and ideas. "So... pack meeting at the station after school?"

Isaac and Scott both looked to Stiles, who realized Allison was also staring at him, and straightened up. "Uh, yeah," he said, clearing his throat. He really didn't understand why they looked to him for the plan. "Yeah you guys should probably... do that."

Frowning, Isaac and Scott exchanged glances and Isaac was silently elected to speak. "You'll be there, right?"

Stiles grimaced. "I could," he admitted. Not technically a lie. "Someone should check the books at the house. Most of the books are still at the station right?"

"Yeah," Isaac confirmed. "I guess that makes sense. You should take someone with you." At this, he cast a significant look at Scott.

"I think I'll be ok," Stiles told him. "If I take Scott, then I'll be taking Allison and if I'm taking both of them I may as well not take either of them. I'll come by the station when I'm through, it probably won't take long. How many books can Derek even fit into that little camaro?"

* * *

The answer, as it turned out, was _a lot._

Stiles had let himself into the Hale house, knowing the others would have Derek occupied for at least a few hours at the station. After the truces had been called (although it was a tragedy to call it a truce, both sides had slunk away to lick their wounds after Jackson broke away from Gerard's control), Derek had finally set aside time to work on the house. However, even though they had finished most of the renovations a month ago, even though the rest of the pack was sleeping here, Derek was still avoiding the place.

Stiles knew why.

A part of him wanted to rub Derek's face in the truth, to make him face his past, to come back here and see that what had been, was gone. He wanted Derek to live in the present, to see the pack around him that would all but smother him in love if he could let go of his dark past.

But he knew better.

That sort of pushing would only cause Derek to push back, and Derek was much stronger.

Standing in one of the basement rooms, Stiles looked around at the boxes of books, the half-toppled pile smeared across the wooden table against the wall. The place smelled like dark. He wasn't sure what exactly smelling like dark entailed, but he felt that if he were to smell this particular combination anywhere else, he would think of dark. It was old stone and moss along the far wall, the musty books and bitter tang of metal.

Reaching over, he flicked on the light and began to move for the table. The flashlight clicked as he set it beside the books. The chair squeaked as he pulled it out, groaned as he sat in it, and he vowed to tell Derek he had to get new furniture. For a moment it was all he could do just to stare at the pile of books before him, daunted, but his drive for knowledge kicked in and he selected the top book to begin skimming.

* * *

Derek lifted his head as his pack trotted down the stairs, cocked an eyebrow as he noticed Scott and Allison were with them. He could practically smell the guilt rolling off of three of them, and he got to his feet to meet them. Allison scooted forward bravely, aware of how little Derek thought of her after her family and their involvement in making his life as miserable as humanly possible.

"Derek," she greeted evenly.

"Allison," he said, in such a way that asked the rest of the pack what the hell she was doing in his home. He noted the lack of the group's well-loved human, and his heartbeat spiked. "Is something wrong?"

"No!" Allison, Scott, and Isaac chimed in unison, earning them a look from Derek. "Well, yes," Allison continued alone, giving Scott and Isaac a glare. "It's my grandfather. He's been chasing some information, and took a flight last night after a lead. He thinks he's found a strain of wolfsbane that... would allow him to control you. Any of you," she said, motioning to all the wolves around her.

"Control us?" Derek asked.

"Like Jackson," Isaac told him.

"So you're..."

"Here to research," Scott supplied. "If he found record of it someplace, maybe one of your books has record of it too."

"And where is Stiles?" Derek asked, as aware as the rest of them that Stiles was their research guru.

"He's better at internet searching than any of us," Allison said evasively as Scott and Isaac shuffled nervously. "There's no internet here if you haven't noticed."

Derek's eyes narrowed. She wasn't lying; her heartbeat stayed level and steady. But she was hiding something, that much was evidenced by the guilty looks on the faces of his betas. "That's not what I asked."

Again, the guilty faces. Isaac broke first. "Some of the books are at the house," he said quickly, before Allison or Scott could get to him. He winced at Derek's look. "He said it would go faster if he went to look there and the rest of us looked here.

Scowling, Derek took a step forward, and the betas cringed. Scott and Allison held their ground, but he wasn't paying attention to them. They were not the core of his pack, not the ones he had turned, not the ones who were actually responsible for the sanctity of their home. "You _let_ him?" he growled. "You weren't going to tell me." It wasn't a question.

No one answered.

Angry, Derek forced himself to close his eyes, count to ten. Stiles was in his house, alone, pawing through his stuff. He had somehow convinced his pack to hide information from him, something no one should be able to do. For a moment he warred with the desire to be angry and the desire to do what he knew was necessary. The threat Allison had brought to his door eventually won and he opened his eyes.

"You are all in trouble," he said carefully, with control. "But I will deal with you when I get back. You," he said, pointing severely at his three regulars. "Start reading. You," he said, pointing to Scott and Allison. "Go home. See what you can find online, see what you can find that your grandfather may have left behind."

"Where are you going?" Scott asked as Derek stalked past them, as if it was not completely obvious.

"I'm going to fetch your idiot of a best friend," he called back as he bounded up the stairs.

* * *

Almost two hours had passed and Stiles found he was staring blearily at the pages of a musty brown tome with too many words in languages he didn't understand. There were no pictures in this one, and it seemed to be mostly a story, not an archive. He sighed and pushed it off the edge of the table. It landed with a loud clunk, tipped onto its side and scattered pages as the glue on the binding disintegrated. A second later his head clunked down on the table.

He didn't stay down long. There was work to be done, and one of these books could hold information and even though none of the last 43 books he'd been through had any useful information, he picked up number 44 and set it dutifully on the table before him.

That's when he realized... there were _things_ in the pages of this book. Or rather, things pressed between the pages, and when he cracked it open, faded green leaves spilled onto the table around him. He blinked, opened the book fully to one page, and laid eyes on a sprig of wolfsbane. Behind it, drawings, notes. A field guide.

Jackpot.

Flipping back to the beginning, he began to carefully scan the pages, reading the descriptions of what each species of wolfsbane would do. All of them had deleterious effects on werewolves, but not all of them were 100% deadly. This one was the most common, causing confusion and disorientation; enough to allow a hunter to move in safely for a kill. That one was rare and would cause death just rubbed on the skin. Stiles was very careful not to touch the dried leaves of that one.

Two-thirds of the way through the guide, he found the plant he was looking for. Beneath the stalk the clean, neat script read:

_Hybrid mutation. Human consumption heightens senses and raises body temperature. Prolonged use may cause skin to exude a scent which seems to mesmerize werewolves, rendering them helpless. Application to a werewolf will render them to a state of suggestibility. Control may be exerted by nearby humans. Studies suggest effects last several hours._

Its flowers were small and lavender, paled to almost white since they had dried. The leaves were small and almost heart shaped, springing straight from the stalk, about the size of his thumbnail. Beneath the description of it, there were two lines of Latin which Stiles didn't understand, but he didn't need to; he was sure had found the plant they were looking for. He scanned the notes again, but there was nothing more; one paragraph and a couple lines he couldn't read.

Lydia could read them, though, if he could get them to her. He pulled his phone from his pocket, snapped a picture of the text and sent it Lydia's way.

After a few moments of no response, Stiles decided yeah, that was probably a long shot and he would just take the phone to her the next day so that she would have to answer him.

So... then he should get this book to the station.

But he didn't move.

His eyes just kept tracing the words "heightened senses" over and over. Like a werewolf, he wondered. Hearing better, seeing better, smelling better? He didn't want to be a werewolf, didn't want to go through those crazy changes, but what if it was just for a little while? Just for a few hours, to know some of what Scott and Derek and the others could do...

One of the tiny, heart-shaped leaves slid with a whisper off of the page, onto the desk, rested against his thumb.

What if he could just... have a taste?

There were no werewolves here. No one he could "mesmerize" with the scent of it, no one that would suffer if he just tried a piece. At the worst he would suffer a few hallucinations like he had done at Lydia's birthday and while that wasn't exactly a pleasant thought, it was a thought he could stand. After all, there was a possibility that Gerard would find more of this plant, bring it back, use it against them, and become somehow more powerful. Stiles would be able to know what they were up against...

Before he could think too much about it, he picked up the leaf and pressed it onto his tongue.

He made a face. It was bitter and dry and he sucked on it for a few minutes before it began to soften, disintegrate. He found himself wishing he had brought some water; of course he couldn't have predicted he'd be ingesting who-knows-how-old, dried-up wolfsbane, but he should have expected the dust and the dry air. A few more minutes of sitting there wishing for something to happen resulted in nothing more than a mild headache and a will to go someplace that wasn't here.

He sighed.

Slowly, carefully, he closed the book, making sure that no leaves or flowers were left anywhere, and then pushed himself to his feet. At the motion, the world listed severely to the right and Stiles found himself upon the ground, ears ringing terribly. He could hear a horrible grinding noise, and the room brightened like someone had shone a floodlight into it.

And then all he could smell was Derek, and he knew it was Derek even if he didn't know how he knew that, and then everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

Derek parked beside Stiles' Jeep, flung his door open and slammed it behind him. He strained to hear anything, could just barely pick out the hammering of Stiles' heart. The house was dark as he unlocked the front door, drew it open and peered inside. A light shone up from the basement, and Derek pulled the front door shut, moved toward the belly of his home. It was silent as he approached, thundered down the stairs, pulled up at the bottom.

No shuffling papers.

No turning pages.

Just Stiles, on his back on the floor, barely breathing, eyes wide open.

Derek's heart skipped a beat and then he stumbled forward, was on the floor, calling Stiles' name, not daring to touch him for fear of hurting him. "Stiles! Stiles, _what happened?_ " he called loudly. The boy reeked of wolfsbane, leaves of the wretched plant scattered around him where the book had fallen from Stiles' nerveless grasp.

Stiles turned his head just slightly, wide golden-brown eyes falling on Derek's face, unseeing.

Cursing, Derek took stock of the area, of the wolfsbane, of the smell of it everywhere, and couldn't think. Surely Stiles couldn't have been stupid enough to eat any of it, which meant something here could poison by touch. Which one? Which one had he touched? There was only one Derek knew had enough oil to transfer through touch, but it shouldn't affect humans. Not like this.

A thin, choked noise escaped Stiles, and Derek managed to splay a hand over his chest, to feel his heartbeat, to feel the rise and fall of his chest. And then he smelled it, underneath the sour, bitter wolfsbane, something else, something overwhelming. It pulled the air from his lungs, choked him, and he was afraid for an instant that the wolfsbane was airborne, that he would be joining Stiles on the floor.

Stiles groaned and the sound rumbled up through Derek's hand and he jerked it away, all of his attention focused on the human. His hand moved to Stiles' jaw, moving his face around as Stiles' eyes began to focus.

"Stiles?" he asked, and his voice cracked over the word. "Stiles, come on. Wake up. Focus. Stiles. Stiles!" he yelled as Stiles' eyes closed. The boy's heartbeat rocketed upward, skin flushed. "Stiles!"

"Derek?" Stiles asked, confused. His heartbeat fell, but the flush remained on his skin, the patches near his jaw turned red.

"Are you injured?" Derek stressed, turning Stiles' face to him. "Can you move?"

Giving Derek a completely bewildered look, Stiles closed his eyes again and just breathed for a moment. "Um... I'm not hurt. I'm just... can you hear that?"

Derek froze, listened intently for a moment but all he could hear was Stiles' heartbeat, the rasp of his breath in and out of his chest. "Hear what?" he asked cautiously.

"That... pounding. It's so loud," Stiles exclaimed. He looked over at Derek and his brows drew together. "You." And then his eyes cleared as he understood. "You- your heartbeat. I can hear your heartbeat."

Scowling, Derek managed to repress the urge to smack Stiles upside the head- but only just. "Get up," he growled. "You shouldn't even be here alone."

"Not alone," Stiles said quietly, but he rolled over and got onto his hands and knees. "It's so hot in here. Isn't it hot in here?"

"It's not hot in here," Derek told him, helping him to his feet.

"Very hot in here," Stiles argued. And then he wasn't letting go of Derek, even though he was on his feet, even though Derek had let go of him. "Derek... do you... I smell something... amazing."

One thick eyebrow rose. Could even Stiles smell what Derek had scented a moment ago, what Derek could still smell all over the boy in front of him? A vague memory struck him then, and his eyes narrowed. "Stiles." He made the name a warning. "Did you... _eat_ any of the wolfsbane you found?" It seemed silly the moment it left his mouth. Stiles was smarter than that. _Of course_ Stiles was smarter than that.

Then Stiles giggled, and Derek remembered that sometimes, Stiles was an idiot.

"Come on," he said, and began to drag Stiles toward the staircase. He would have to get the youth home before the wolfsbane rendered him unable. Still a little disoriented, Stiles followed him, managed to make it up the stairs, froze at the top as they stared down the hallway.

"Derek," Stiles said softly, and Derek had to close his eyes, swallow before answering because _that tone_ , and his fingers wrapped in the leather of Derek's jacket, tugging him back.

"We have to get you home," Derek told him firmly.

"Don't want to go home," Stiles whined, tugged at his sleeve again. "Don't make me go."

Derek growled, low in his throat, because _how unfair_ was that request? How unfair that it came _now_ , when Stiles was out of his mind. "You have to."

And Stiles was scooting up behind him, and Derek stiffened, moved away from him, turned to look at him wide eyed. Stiles just advanced again. "Please, Derek," he pleaded. "Want to stay. Want you to stay."

He was almost too late catching Stiles' wrists as his hands reached out, and Derek had to shake his head to clear the fog. That scent, it was everywhere, and he knew what it was, and he knew why Stiles was acting like this. He knew what would come next, and he had to get the boy out of here, back to his own home, and get away from him. Because he didn't want to; he had to because he didn't want to, because if he did what he wanted to instead, Stiles would never forgive him.

"You shouldn't have eaten that wolfsbane, Stiles," he admonished and Stiles _honest to god_ whimpered when Derek said his name.

Squirming in his grasp, Stiles attempted to wriggle closer to Derek. "It didn't say... Derek, please," Stiles pleaded again. "Let me... please let me. I want..."

"Shut up," Derek ground out through clenched teeth. It wasn't _fair_ , and he closed his eyes trying to get a grip on his thoughts, trying to push out that _scent_ even though it was clinging to him, and he knew it was Stiles but there was wolfsbane in there too. For just a moment he let himself ignore the last, imagine that Stiles would be the one pressing his wrists into Derek's palms, that Stiles really would be murmuring senseless pleas.

Stiles slipped his wrists out of Derek's hands when they loosened, moving forward, his fingers pressing down the werewolf's chest. Curled his trembling fingers under the edge of Derek's shirt and rested his head against Derek's collarbone. He felt it when Derek sighed, laid hands on his shoulders to push him away. He pushed back.

"If you don't want- you don't have to... touch me," Stiles said, and Derek shuddered, his head foggy with the strange scent. "Just let me... please."

"This will wear off in a few hours," Derek said quietly, and he wasn't sure if he was saying it to Stiles or to himself, but he meant it. He could feel Stiles' breath, warm on his shoulder, feel the twitches as Stiles pressed himself closer, and he didn't _want_ to tighten his grip on the boy's shoulders to stop him. But he _had_ to, because in a few hours, Stiles would be angry if he did anything else. Because Stiles _trusted_ him. Because if Stiles didn't trust him, this would never happen for real.

"Hours," Stiles repeated breathlessly, and he caught Derek's eyes, and they were talking different hours.

_Not fair._

"Not like this," Derek said firmly. "In a few hours, if you want to talk hours with me-" He had to pause, clear his throat because his voice broke over the words. "Then we can talk."

"Don't want to talk," Stiles murmured, eyes glassy. He hesitated, blinked slowly, took a deep breath through his nose. "Why do you smell so good...?"

Perhaps Derek could have held him at bay indefinitely. He was stronger, but he didn't feel stronger- not with that scent wreathed around them, not with the wolfsbane in the human's system. Not with the way Stiles squirmed, not with the "please, Derek"s that fell from his lips.

"Stiles," he said, because it was the only word he could manage when Stiles tucked himself full up against Derek, hands running along his jaw, over his collarbone, down his chest. He said it again when Stiles tucked his warm nose into the crook of Derek's neck, when his tongue made a quick swipe over the ridge of Derek's collarbone.

He couldn't arrest the growl that stole from him, because god dammit he shouldn't have to put up with this; Stiles should have known better than to go eating strange things. He shouldn't be here alone, shouldn't be in _Derek's house_ , going through _Derek's books_ , smelling like _Derek's life_.

He didn't want him to stop.

Then Stiles' lips were on his skin, and he could feel Stiles' teeth scrape gently on his shoulder, and in his shock he found the strength to grab the boy and shove him back a step, to move down the hall no matter what he wanted. "Fine," he choked out raggedly. "You can stay here. I can't. Not like this."

His hand was on the door when Stiles made such a lost, irretrievable noise that Derek turned. Stiles leaned against the wall, was staring at him with such a hurt expression that Derek knew he wasn't leaving. Briefly he entertained the idea of taking Stiles _home_ , to his father, to his own room, and just leaving him there, but all he could imagine was Stiles crawling across the center console, all pawing hands and pleading, and fuck it, he wouldn't be able to drive with that. Like driving wasn't hard enough when Stiles sat still and was quietly uncomfortable on the other side of the car.

He hated himself for moving away from the door. He hated the enormous, stupid sense of curiosity somehow stuffed into the teenager who was plucking at his shirt the second he was in range. Derek grabbed his face in both hands, made him look up, caught his amber-brown eyes and held them. Searched, desperately, for some sign that Stiles was aware of what was going on, some sign that it was Stiles' fingers that slipped under his shirt, ran across his skin, tucked themselves just under the edge of his pants, thumbs running over his belt buckle.

Some sign that it was _Derek_ that Stiles wanted, not just who-ever came across his path first.

Stiles smiled, and the breath he drew was shaky, caught in his throat halfway. "You're thinking too much," he teased, leaning into Derek's hands, pressing past them until their lips met.

For a moment Derek didn't kiss him back, just felt the warmth of his lips, the feather-light touch of his breath over his cheek. He shouldn't let this happen, knew that Stiles would not forgive him. But would he forgive him for walking away, letting him wander out into the forest alone like this? He would wander off, Derek knew, and when he made it to town (because he would do that as well), it wouldn't be Derek he found first. It would be someone else, someone that perhaps wouldn't stop him, someone that might hurt him, or have him arrested.

A jolt shot through him when Stiles bit his lip, and he had to stop him, had to just breathe for a moment, hands on Stiles' shoulders, almost pressing his back against the wall. Because it wasn't _Stiles_ doing these things, not _Stiles_ saying his name in ways that set his skin on fire with desire. It was the wolfsbane, and when it wore off, it would _never be Stiles_.

"You shouldn't have taken that wolfsbane," he murmured, shaking his head. But as soon as he'd said it, he kissed Stiles anyway, and Stiles kissed hungrily back. He couldn't bring himself to care, not with the way Stiles pressed into him, hands roaming, pulling him in closer. Not with the wolfsbane scent fogging up his mind. "You're going to kill me tomorrow," he said as they broke apart for a moment.

To his surprise, Stiles rolled one shoulder, twitched his head into the shrug. "Maybe," he said, and it was almost lucid. "My head's so fuzzy, but you feel so good, smell so good. I just _want you_."

Derek groaned and closed his eyes, because it was ridiculous to hear those words rolling off of Stiles' tongue, directed at him. The human pushed forward and Derek pushed back, stronger, backing him up to the wall with a thump. Gently, he let his forehead fall to Stiles' shoulder, allowed himself a moment to just breathe him in. He could _smell_ the desire clouding around the boy, could _smell_ the arousal, the need, and he wanted _so badly_ to give in, to believe that Stiles did want him.

He could smell the wolfsbane, too, but when Stiles moved, kissed his cheek, his jaw, whispered "please" so low and needy in his ear, he found his hands on the boy's hips anyway, fingers digging in. Maybe he could just hold him there until it wore off, just keep him in one place. Let him touch, but keep him pinned against the wall, under control. If he just-

But Stiles was _squirming_ against him, discovered that if he rocked his hips just so, Derek would make the most delicious noise. For a moment it was all he could do just to cling to him, to grasp at the tendrils of coherent thought that escaped him, try to remember what exactly it was that he had decided to do. Something about pinning... holding... he was sure there had been control.

It didn't feel like it. It didn't feel like there was control at all.

He grabbed at Stiles' wrists, just to stop his hands for a moment, to keep them from finishing their task and Derek realized as his belt buckle hit his thigh that Stiles had already gotten it halfway undone and unthreaded. Before he could issue any sort of reprimand, Stiles _keened_. It was distress and desire and need and utterly _not fair_ what it did to Derek, the way his own hips rocked forward of their own accord.

"Please," Stiles groaned, low and pleading, pressing forward despite that Derek had his wrists tacked to the wall behind him. "Derek."

The name went straight to his cock, shot straight through him, and he just couldn't take it. His throat was closed, choking him with how badly he wanted this, with how monstrous he felt as he pressed back, crushed his lips to Stiles'. His hand released Stiles' wrists and he could smell the bruises even as he ran his hands down Stiles' sides, to the backs of his thighs, pulling forward to unbalance him, lift him, slam him into the wall without ever breaking the kiss.

Stiles wrapped his legs around Derek, pulling their hips together. He slid his arms under the jacket, around Derek's sides as they kissed, dragged claws down Derek's back until he growled. Panting, they parted, foreheads touching, eyes closed. Stiles' fingers wove restlessly through Derek's hair, across the nape of his neck and he whispered nonsensical things between breaths. Over and over he just pressed his lips to Derek's, feeling Derek's hands tightening on his hips like he wasn't going to sit still forever.

"Derek," he murmured insistently, drawing Derek back to his senses, just barely.

A deep rumble was his only response, and Stiles whimpered because Derek's grip was so tight he knew there would be more bruises. Derek's entire body stiffened at the sound and he pulled back, just enough to feel Stiles wince when his grip loosened. His stomach turned as he realized what happened, how he'd let himself go, _hurt_ Stiles.

But Stiles didn't let him go, clung onto him tighter. "Don't," he begged, legs tightening around Derek's hips. "Don't you _dare_. I'm stronger than that, I'd tell you to stop. I don't want you to stop. I need-" but his words dissolved into a senseless, mewling noise as Derek pressed into him. "Derek..."

Tiny, worried kisses, needy kisses, were the ones he pressed to any part of Derek he could reach. Along his jaw, his temple, his cheek, his brow, the little, soft, sensitive hollow just beneath his ear, all the time murmuring it was ok, he was fine, just don't stop, please.

It was the please that broke Derek, that reminded him of how strong he wasn't. Not strong enough to say no to Stiles touching him, only strong enough to hold him there. He kept his head pressed into Stiles' shoulder, just trying to think, just trying to get a grasp on what was happening, what he had done, what he would do if Stiles just didn't stop, just didn't stop him, just let the wolfsbane have them both. Because Stiles was whispering "it's ok, just let go," and Derek couldn't quite fathom the degree to which he wanted to do just that.

It was a degree not lessened by the way Stiles insinuated his hand between them, stroked oh-so-gently up along him so that all Derek wanted in the entire world, all he could remember of his entire life, was that particular moment and how badly he _wanted_ the human wrapped up around him. He knew Stiles could feel it, in every line of his body, every raggedly drawn breath as he struggled for control.

Then there were lips against his throat and he felt them pulling back, felt Stiles' teeth against his skin, felt him bite so softly, the ghost of a dominant nip.

" _Please_ ," Stiles whimpered.

It was the please that broke him.


	3. Chapter 3

His scent clung to every inch of the boy sleeping curled in the passenger seat of his camaro, almost enough to cover the scent of the bruises. Even now, hours later, his head was still a little fuzzy, but he could remember well enough. He didn't think he would ever forget; which was just as well, because when Stiles woke up tomorrow he wasn't going to forget either. He would want to, of course, but the marks Derek had left on his skin would remind him.

He tried desperately to focus on anything mundane, anything to take his mind away from Stiles. His betas- he'd left them at the station researching and they were probably cranky that they hadn't heard from him. When he got back he would have some explaining to do, and he couldn't go back until he had showered. Until he had showered many times, and changed his clothes, because the scent of Stiles, of what they had done, was so strong he might as well have hung a sign around his neck.

So much for not thinking about Stiles.

Releasing his grip from the wheel, he ran one hand through his hair and sighed, jaw clenching. He should have known better than to go into the house. He'd known enough to tell his betas to stay put, enough to send Scott and Allison away; enough to give Stiles the time to come down from the wolfsbane. Derek hadn't _known_ that Stiles would try any, but he knew what the entry said about it enhancing the senses of men. He knew the allure it would hold, if Stiles read the passage; he didn't have to wonder if Stiles would connect the dots.

He hadn't quite remembered how strong that _pull_ was.

Because he did remember the last time he had encountered the mutated wolfsbane. He remembered the night Kate had passed him the bitter smelling tea, the way she had smiled at him as she set the mug in front of him. How, when he had finished, he would have answered any question she asked; how he _did._ He remembered, too well, how she had left him for his sister to find, at the edge of their property.

When Stiles shifted in the seat beside him, he realized he had stopped breathing, his hands so tight on the steering wheel he might have bent it. He couldn't handle thinking about Kate right now, about the tricks she had used, about the crushing depression that had taken him when he learned how weak she had made him. How she had taken everything from him, destroyed his world after that night. Taking a few deep breaths, he forced himself to focus, to release his grip, to take comfort in the presence of the sleeping human.

A comfort that vaporized when he caught the faint scent of blood.

He had _hurt_ Stiles.

Maybe not exactly like Kate had hurt him, but he _had_ hurt him. Had betrayed his trust in unforgivable ways, the same as he would never have forgiven Kate. Everything he had ever said to or done for Stiles was in the past. Any hope he might have harbored - however small and fledgling it might have been - for forming a bond with the human was for nothing because he couldn't stay away. Couldn't keep control.

The road blurred badly enough in front of him that he had to pull over, forehead dropping to rest against the arc of the steering wheel as he grasped at whatever control he thought he could manage. He had hurt _Stiles_ and Stiles was _never going to forget it_. The thought was enough to unhinge him briefly, sitting on the edge of the road, eyes burning, chest tight.

The lack of motion roused Stiles, and he blinked sleepily in the dark. "Are we there?" he asked, his voice low and raw from screaming.

Derek shuddered at the tone, but raised his head. "No," he said quietly, hoping the tightness in his throat was not too evident. The human was still a little hazy anyway. "Go back to sleep."

For a moment Stiles stared intensely ahead of them at the road, as if trying to determine where they were. Derek let him, without saying anything, without moving the car. He knew how disorienting the after-effects of the drug were. "This isn't my car," Stiles said at last.

Derek couldn't stop the snort that escaped him. "No, it's not," he agreed. "Your car is at my house. I'll bring it back later."

Stiles' brows scrunched up but he didn't turn his attention from the road. "We're not moving, are we."

"Stiles," Derek said firmly. "Go back to sleep."

It seemed that the boy would object with the way he stared straight ahead, puzzling out what was going on, but in the end he just made a small noise and closed his eyes once more. Derek waited until his heartbeat leveled out - still beating too fast, but only just now - before he began to drive. They were close now.

He tried not to think of what Stiles' father was going to say when they got there.

* * *

The knock at the door was muffled and strangely broad, barely rousing the sheriff from sleep. Snatching the alarm clock from his bedside stand, he glared blearily at the glowing red "2:36AM" on its face and wondered why Stiles wasn't answering the door until he remembered Stiles had left a note saying he was staying with Scott. The sheriff couldn't fathom who would be arriving at his door at this hour of the morning, but his first conclusion was that it was probably important or it would have waited until morning. Actual morning, not technical morning, he corrected as he slumped from the bed and began to put on some semblance of clothing.

Needless to say, Derek Hale carrying the unconscious body of his seventeen-year-old son was not the sight with which he expected to be greeted when he opened the front door.

"Oh," he said, noting how tired the guy looked, how red his eyes were, even as the sheriff drew open the door and stood aside.

"He's ok," Derek blurted out almost desperately before he could even ask. "I mean, he'll be ok."

"Get inside before the neighbors notice you, please," the sheriff said tiredly, giving him a pointed look. He had already figured that his son was ok to some degree; Derek would have taken him to the hospital if he was not.

He didn't _like_ that Stiles was being carried into the house unconscious, but since Mrs. McCall had dialed him up one evening and insisted he needed to share in the secret world of 'your son is helping my son be a werewolf and there's probably some weirder shit you should also be aware of,' he had come to terms with the idea that sometimes Stiles was going to do things he didn't _like_. He wasn't sure this counted as _doing_ anything, but he was not quite functioning well enough to figure out what this was.

Derek skirted past him, unable to meet his eyes, and headed immediately for the stairs. The sheriff tossed a glance out at the street, noted that no one had their lights on or was likely even awake at all at this hour (thank goodness), and closed the door with a quiet click. Then he trailed after the young man, forcing himself to remember that Derek _was,_ in fact, a werewolf.

He reached the top of the stairs as Derek toed the door to Stiles' room, shouldered it open with just enough force to slip around the edge of it without knocking any part of Stiles into any part of the doorframe. He was so _gentle_ , the sheriff found himself thinking as he reached the doorway, watched as Derek laid Stiles on top of the covers. Watched as he dropped to his knees, arms resting on the side of the bed, eyes trained on his son's face.

He found it difficult to believe that this creature, capable of fantastic acts of destruction and violence, incredibly strong and fast and deadly, this unholy beast of the night, could twine his soft human fingers so gently, almost tenderly, with Stiles' fingers. Just once he had seen Derek as a wolf, terrifying and dangerous. There was no trace of that now in the defeated hunch of his shoulders, the way he laid his chin on his arms and just watched Stiles, no doubt listening to his heart or something like he'd been told werewolves could.

"What happened?" the sheriff asked, barely a whisper. He was loathe to break the moment, but he was desperately worried about Stiles. He could see, even at this distance, even in the dark, the flush on his son's cheeks. "Werewolf business?"

Derek snorted. It might have been a chuckle, had it been less depressing. "Yeah, something like that," he agreed. "He ate something he shouldn't have, and it... it made him sick. But, he won't be by morning. He'll sleep it off."

"You're sure?" he insisted. "Has this happened before?"

"Not to him," Derek assured him. "It happened to me once. It's not deadly, just... not great."

He saw the way Derek started when Stiles roused, tightened his fingers around Derek's. "Derek? You're still here." He sounded confused.

"Yeah," Derek told him, and the sheriff was startled to hear how much the wolf's voice had changed; he sounded broken. "I was just... I was just leaving. Your dad's here."

"Dad..." Stiles repeated, as if he couldn't quite grasp the meaning of the word. "I'm home."

"Yes," Derek affirmed. "I brought you home, remember?"

"To my dad," Stiles observed, and then he shifted to look Derek in the eyes. When he spoke, however, it wasn't to the werewolf. "Dad, could you... just give us a minute?"

His dad shifted, uncomfortable with the idea of leaving Stiles alone in a dark room with a werewolf, but he knew, in the end, that it was safe enough. He'd been told how many times Derek had saved Stiles life and, while he knew it was mostly Derek's fault Stiles was in danger in the first place, he could appreciate the sentiment. It didn't hurt that he could see they needed a little bit of alone time. He doubted that whatever Stiles had eaten was the only cause of the distress that was nearly tangible between them.

He knew those looks, and he didn't like it. Derek was a _werewolf_. He was older than Stiles by _over half a decade_. There were _reasons_ that he shouldn't leave these two alone in a room together, but the sheriff also knew that there were some things which didn't listen to _reason_. They were the same things that he could hear in Derek's voice, in his son's tone, see in the expressions etched on both their faces.

So he just nodded, told Derek that he wasn't to use the window to leave, and closed the door behind him.

* * *

Stiles waited until he heard his father's footsteps on the hardwood floor at the base of the stairs, eyes trained on Derek the entire time. Derek was looking anywhere but Stiles, which drove him crazy and did nothing to alleviate his sense of guilt about the entire evening. Everything was still hazy, still fuzzy around the edges, and his senses were still on the side of overdrive. He could hear the faint beat of Derek's heart.

He could hear how it sped up when he said Derek's name.

"I'm sorry," he said, when Derek finally met his eyes. He was beginning to feel better, able. "I shouldn't have taken the wolfsbane." It was his turn to drop his gaze, close his eyes. What a nightmare.

But Derek was shaking his head, keeping his words behind a clenched jaw until they were sorted. "You couldn't have known. I shouldn't have... any of it."

"You were under the effects too," Stiles pointed out quietly. "That's what the book said. Helpless."

"Not helpless," Derek argued stubbornly. "I just couldn't... think."

Steeling himself, Stiles looked up, raked his eyes over Derek, who still knelt beside his bed. He was whole, had healed the bruises from where Stiles had gripped his arms, healed the scratch marks down his back. He could feel the bruises on his own hips, the marks across his shoulders, front and back, that would be days in healing. All he felt was guilty, because he had done something so incredibly stupid.

"You told my dad this happened to you once," he said at last. "What happened afterward?" _What should we do now_ , he wanted to ask.

Emotions roiled across Derek's features, raw and pained. Stiles regretted asking, because he could have guessed who had dosed Derek even before he spoke the words. "Afterward? Afterward she teased me about being so weak, so worthless, and then she ditched me in unconscious the woods and torched my family."

Stiles closed his eyes, let his head drop back against the pillow as he cursed himself out for even asking. Of course it would have been Kate that dosed Derek. Of course. The book probably belonged to her. Of-freaking-course.

"I'm sorry," he murmured.

"That wasn't your fault," Derek told him, but he was standing and moving away from the edge of the bed. "Neither is this."

"It wouldn't have happened if I hadn't done something stupid. Really stupid." Stiles had a hard time believing just how stupid; no matter how much stood to be learned about what Gerard would find, he should have waited. Should have talked to the pack first.

"It was really stupid," Derek agreed, but he gave a little head-twitch of a shrug. "But I knew better. I knew... better. I shouldn't have let anything happen.

"I don't suppose we could just... forget anything happened?" Stiles offered, cracking open one eye to gauge his reaction. Another flicker of that strange, deeply injured expression. Of course Derek couldn't just forget it- his last interaction with this wolfsbane had cost him his family. What it had cost him this time Stiles couldn't guess, but he regretted taking whatever it was. "Pretend nothing happened?"

"We should," Derek said before Stiles could retract the offer.

Surprised, Stiles opened his eyes fully. He tried to catch Derek's gaze, but the werewolf was already turning to leave. "Just like that?"

"Just like that, Stiles." The words were ground out through a clenched jaw. He paused at the door, hand on the knob. "Get some sleep."

Stiles frowned, because he knew where Derek was going and even though his super-sense of smell was fading, he could smell himself all over Derek. He knew the betas would be able to smell him. He wondered if Derek had thought of that. If he was going to tell them or if he really was just going to pretend it never happened.

There was a part of Stiles that didn't _want_ him to forget it.

Stiles certainly wouldn't forget.

He didn't want to forget, not all of it. Maybe the wolfsbane, maybe the reminder it had given Derek of his shitty history with humans and wolfsbane, but not the result. Not the way Derek had stuttered his name when he rolled his hips. Not the way Derek smoothed his hands reverently down Stiles' back. Definitely not the way his breath had felt against Stiles' neck as they wound down, the way he whispered nonsensical things into his skin as his fingers sought any patch of skin he hadn't touched.

"Hey," he said quickly, before he lost the nerve, before Derek opened the door. When he turned to look, Stiles found he couldn't meet his eyes because he wanted Derek to remember those things but he didn't have the words. "Thank you," he said instead. Derek just kept _looking_ at him, so he added: "You could have just... left me there." He managed to drag his gaze up to Derek's eyes. "I'm not... your _responsibility_. You could have just left me, and I would have gotten out, and maybe I'd have made it to town, and maybe I'd have done something I would seriously regret."

"You did anyway," Derek pointed out softly.

"Maybe," Stiles agreed, even though it hurt, even though he didn't regret it. "It could have been worse."

"It could have been better. I could have stopped you."

Stiles twitched a smile that disappeared an instant later, but he shook his head. "No, you couldn't have."

He _felt_ the way Derek's eyes raked over him, knew it had perhaps been the wrong reminder to make. He didn't take it back, though, and Derek turned away, pulled open the bedroom door. But he hesitated, hand still on the knob, not quite over the threshold.

Without turning, he said: "I couldn't have left you there, either."

Then he was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

He sat at the kitchen table, the scent of coffee wreathed around him, watching the minutes tick by on the hands of his watch. Almost three in the morning, but he hadn't heard the door upstairs. He wasn't sure that he would, that Derek had even been capable of listening when he'd told him not to leave by the window. Stiles' dad had _questions_ and someone was going to sit the hell down and _answer_ them for once.

Because he _deserved_ that much, at least.

Because he had seen what all of this werewolf business had been doing to his son, even if he hadn't known the cause, and it was confusing. It caused rifts. He had hated that there was something going on - and he _had_ known there was _something_ going on - that Stiles was unwilling to tell him. Because he was afraid of being in trouble, because he was afraid his father would get hurt, because he was afraid that if he told his father, it would become real.

If turning up unconscious on the doorstep of their home, carried by a haggard looking Derek Hale, looking like hell, sounding like he'd been drugged wasn't real enough for Stiles, the sheriff wasn't sure what was.

Footsteps on the stairs yanked his attention back to the present, and he looked up just in time to catch Derek taking in the scene in the kitchen. He looked less worried than he had when he arrived, but no less tired, no less beaten down. The sheriff wondered what they had spoken of up there; the conversation was brief, whatever it was, and he somehow doubted anything was resolved. He made a note to himself to check on Stiles when his werewolf left.

"Have a seat," he said quietly, sliding one of the mugs of coffee across the table toward Derek.

Cautiously, like an animal approaching a trap, Derek sidled into the room, pulled out one of the kitchen chairs, and took a seat. He reached for the coffee, but it seemed as if he wasn't really going to drink it. The sheriff wondered if the caffeine would even affect a werewolf; Stiles had admitted that alcohol didn't affect Scott. At any rate, he seemed like he needed something to hang on to, and the mug was just as good as anything else the sheriff might have offered.

For a few minutes they sat in silence, listening to the middle of the night settle around them. Derek clutched the mug tightly enough the sheriff thought he might break it, stared intently at the wood lines in the table as if they would produce some safe topic. The sheriff sipped at his coffee and tried to convince himself he should stop if he wanted to get back to sleep any time soon.

"If you hurt him, I'm going to stake you," he began, and it hadn't been what he'd meant to say at all, and as soon as he said it he thought maybe that wasn't werewolves, but it was past 3am and it had gotten Derek's attention anyway. "Or... silver bullets. The uh... whatsit that was in Kate Argent's bullets. Wolfsbane."

Derek _paled_ when he said the word and he knew he'd gotten it right, but he looked so wounded that the sheriff immediately felt bad.

"I don't like him being involved in all of this," he told Derek, more gently this time, and the admission left him feeling drained. Derek just sat there and continued to look as if he'd been sucker punched in the gut, so the sheriff sighed and began to study the mug in his hands. Finally he shook his head, dismissing the earlier thought. "I don't even know what 'all of this' is."

"Mistakes," Derek told him hollowly. Their eyes met, and Derek shook his head. "It's all mistakes. I made a mistake when I was Stiles' age, and it cost me my family. It cost my uncle his sanity. It cost Scott his humanity and Allison her mother. It's costing Stiles..."

The sheriff nodded slowly, taking in the information. Most of his information had come from Scott's mother, and she hadn't known much about Derek. Stiles had been unwilling to discuss him on most occasions, aside from a few instances, one of which had been to tell him what they knew about Kate. The guy had a lot of guilt.

"I wish I could just make him stay out of it," Derek said tiredly, staring into his cooling coffee.

" _Make_ Stiles do something he doesn't want to do? Keep him away from something he wants?" The sheriff nearly laughed at the idea, but his words had drawn the werewolf's sharp attention. "Sorry, I just... I've been trying to figure out how to do that for seventeen years. It might be impossible."

Derek closed his eyes, raised his mug and took a long draw. When he set the mug down, he met the sheriff's eyes. "Maybe."

Silence fell around them as they sat there, both now finishing their coffee, thinking about how difficult Stiles was. It was the sheriff who set his mug down first, empty, and Derek followed his example even though he wasn't finished. "I should let you get home," he said slowly. "But before you go, I have to ask... whatever he ate that made him sick, he did it for you? For your pack?"

"Probably," Derek confirmed, scooting his chair back and standing. "We didn't ask him to. I would have told him not to, if he'd asked me."

"But he's... safe, now?" the sheriff pressed.

Derek frowned, and Stiles' father knew it was because the term safe wasn't a legitimate term for any of their group. They were never just _safe_ anymore. There was always something that could go wrong, hurt them, kill them. "He'll live," Derek settled on at last.

"Did you at least work it out?" asked Stiles' father in a no-nonsense tone. "Whatever he wanted to say to you when I left?"

"Not really," Derek said honestly, and the sheriff could see how plainly it hurt him to say that. "I'm not sure we can."

"And if I asked what happened - what _really_ happened - I don't suppose you'd give me a straight answer?" He thought he knew what Derek would say, except that when Derek spoke he was surprised to find out he was wrong.

"I would, but I don't think it would be a good idea for you to ask."

The sheriff nodded, accepting the answer for what it was. While a large part of him wanted to know exactly what had happened, he'd had enough knowing exactly what was happening in the past few weeks. Sometimes exactly what was happening was a little too much crazy for him, and while his son and company had been dealing with all of this for months, sometimes he had to take a breather of ignorance.

"Fair enough," he conceded, and presented the way out of his home with one arm. Derek took the hint, and the sheriff escorted him to the front door. He watched until Derek had slid into the front seat of the slick, black camaro and closed the door, disappearing into the black of night.

The front door clicked shut and the sheriff shook his head, scrubbed at his face and eyes for a moment before trudging toward the stairs. It was like climbing a mountain with how tired he felt, but he made it all the way to the top and partway down the hall to his room before he realized the bathroom light was on. The door was propped halfway open, and so he walked over to it, poked his head in to see his son.

Stiles stood before the wall-length mirror, his slender hands spread over the counter on either side of the silver sink, staring into the eyes of his own reflection. He had stripped off his shirt, exposing the length of his torso to his critical gaze as he thought. His father was startled to see the mottled bruises pressed into his ribs, his upper arms, around his wrists like cuffs. Just at the edge of where his boxes hung from his hips peeked darker bruises, deeper bruises, multiples. The most startling, the bruised bites at Stiles' collarbone, the hollow of his throat, the line of his neck. His father's eyes were just slipping from the fading abraded marks down his back when he realized Stiles was looking at him through the mirror.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked his son, because it was the only thing he could think to say. Stiles hadn't moved an inch.

Slowly, so slowly, Stiles' gaze drifted back to his own eyes in the mirror, intense and upset, but as hard as steel. "I did something really stupid tonight," he said quietly. "It felt like I was going to die, until Derek showed up. He probably saved my life tonight."

"Did he also... do all that?" his father asked neutrally, motioning up and down the length of Stiles' body, at the bruises, the marks.

"No," Stiles told him, voice hollow but firm. He couldn't even hold his own gaze, dropping it to his hands where they clenched atop the counter. "No, I did this. I made a mistake, and this is what it looks like."

"Everyone makes mistakes, kiddo." His father leaned against the doorframe, tried to keep the worry off his face. "It's ok to ask for help, you know," he said gently. Stiles looked over, met his eyes. "Derek told me you wouldn't have... eaten whatever it was if you'd talked to him first. Asked for help."

"That's probably true," Stiles admitted, and he shoved himself away from the sink with both hands. "Maybe that was the mistake."

His father stepped aside as Stiles flicked off the lights and exited the bathroom. He stopped, winced when his father grabbed his arm, despite that he was as gentle as possible. He desperately wanted to ask if Stiles was ok, to make him say it, to make it better, the way he used to think he could when Stiles was hurting. But Stiles had grown up, had become a part of a world his father was only just starting to understand, and it had _changed_ him. So much so that the sheriff was at a loss for how to ask what he wanted to know.

Stiles gave a little frown, but he shrugged, understanding. "I'm fine," Stiles told him as sincerely as possible. He was glad at least one person in his life couldn't hear his heartbeat rise. "Despite how it looks. It won't even matter by Monday."

His father nodded, released him, let him walk away from him. But as he watched him go, he pursed his lips. He knew Stiles was lying. He wasn't fine, and his father suspected it had something to do with how all of his bruises were slow-pressed into his skin, the sort of marks left by lips and palms and fingers.

But it was "werewolf business" as Stiles liked to tell him when he didn't want to tell him anything, and he knew that pressing it wouldn't yield any more answers than Stiles was willing to give. If anything, it would push him farther away, and away was the last place Stiles needed to be.

So he swallowed his anger, even though it felt like it would choke him, and watched his son shuffle tiredly to his room. The click of Stiles' room door echoed hollowly up and down the hall as Stiles closed himself off from the rest of the world.

* * *

He let the scalding water pour over his skin, eyes closed, hands braced against the bright new tile wall. Breathing through his mouth as the water covered his nose should have lessened the scent of the boy that clung to his skin, but it only changed it, only made him remember the taste of Stiles' skin. Salty. Sharp. He rolled his tongue along the roof of his mouth, trying to scrub away the memory.

Pushing away from the wall, he scrubbed his hands over his face, through his hair, down his arms. Scratching until he was raw, letting the skin heal, trying to escape the night. It was only worse that he didn't _want_ the scent to be gone. He didn't _want_ to wash Stiles away like nothing happened. Not from himself, not from his things, not from his house... but he had to.

He had to open the windows in Isaac's room, hunt down any trace they had left after tumbling into the beta's room in search of something to ease their fun. Of course Isaac would have something, Stiles had told him breathlessly. Of course he would, and Derek couldn't object; not when the entire room smelled of Scott, not when Derek had pretended not to notice the nights Scott didn't stay until morning, pretended not to hear him closing the door to Isaac's room. Derek had left a fan blowing, hoping the room would air out before he finished showering, before he had to come back here with his pack.

But it wouldn't, and he knew it.

They would come back, and they would be able to smell Stiles in places where Stiles didn't belong- or at least, places Stiles had never been.

Remembering, he brushed fingers over his ribs, felt the bruises Stiles had left there. He let them heal, finally, as he touched them, had been reluctant to let go of these last reminders. The rest he had let heal, except for the handprints on his chest, the dark bite mark on his collarbone. Slowly he rubbed his thumb over the healing mark, the bite Stiles had given him the first time, attempting to muffle his shout in Derek's shoulder until Derek had told him there was no one to hear. There was no one for miles to hear, no matter how loud Stiles wanted to be... and Stiles was very, very loud.

Groaning, he pressed his forehead against the cold tile, jaw clenched, hand slipping down to his cock because he couldn't help himself. Those _sounds_ were going to haunt him. He hated that Stiles wanted to forget.

He wasn't sure he was capable of forgetting the way the human felt under him. The way he felt pressed against the bed beneath him, legs around his hips, hands pressing into Derek's ribs. Again against his dresser, with the contents of the surface scattered on Derek's floor; Derek's floor where they had ended up, the carpet burning Stiles' knees.

He'd opened the window to his room as well, but he knew his room would reek of Stiles for days even so. It would reek of sex and desire and passion; it would smell like his mate and it would drive him _crazy_ until it went away.

But Derek _didn't want it to go away_.

How could Stiles?

How impossible would it be for the human to forget, when he couldn't heal the way Derek did, when he would see the marks every time he stripped to shower. Every time he got dressed for lacrosse he would see the nail marks Derek left on his shoulders, holding onto his humanity as best as he could because he knew the wolf would hurt Stiles otherwise. Every time Stiles laid down for sleep he would feel the soreness of his muscles, the ache that Derek had put into him, and he would remember.

But Stiles _didn't want to remember._

"Just forget," Derek echoed Stiles' earlier statement.

He might never forget, and so he promised himself he would leave the shower in just a few more minutes. In just a moment, he would get dressed and go to collect his pack, bring them back to the den. He would scrub himself clean one more time, put himself back together, and take care of everything he'd left unfinished.

In just a moment he would try to forget, when it felt like his chest wasn't being crushed quite so much.

* * *

The station was quiet save for the slick hiss of Isaac slowly turning the pages of a large tome. Erica sat nearby, a soft smile playing on her lips, her head cradled atop her bent elbow so that she could watch Boyd sleep next to her at the table. He had passed out somewhere around the twentieth useless book and Erica had given up shortly afterward when she learned Isaac couldn't talk and research at the same time. Consequently, the vast majority of the books they had gone through were piled around Isaac where he sat at his own table.

When his head dipped down for the fourth time, Isaac shook his head and scrubbed blearily at his eyes. He was just about to recommend that they turn in for the night despite that Derek hadn't returned when he caught scent of said alpha approaching. "Derek's back," he alerted quietly.

Erica raised her own head, took a sniff as she tilted her head to listen. "He brought Stiles back with him?" That was unusual.

Like Erica, Isaac could smell Stiles but when he tested the air again he knew the scent was 'cold' as Derek would say. It was not coming from Stiles, and he could smell something else, as well, something vaguely familiar. "He's alone," he told her and they both listened to the single set of foot beats that approached. "Probably just met him at the house."

Derek's form appeared at the top of the stairs, hesitated before he jumped down them three or four at a time. Dust clouded around his feet as he landed on the station floor and Isaac barely kept from rolling his eyes at their leader's entrance.

"What took so long?" he called, and the noise roused Boyd from sleep.

Derek froze and all three of the betas heard his heartbeat rise. Then it settled, and he continued moving forward. "Problems. I took care of it," he growled, not looking any of them in the eye.

With a sideways look at one another, Erica and Isaac both rose to their feet. "What happened?" Erica asked at the same time as Isaac said: "Did Stiles find anything?"

"No," Derek said, choosing to answer Isaac's question instead. Then, because none of the three believed that lie even a little: "Nothing I didn't already know."

Erica caught the meaning first, and she scowled. "You already knew about the wolfsbane? What on earth have we been doing all night?"

"Staying out of the way," Derek told her as he moved past them, into the train to grab a few items. "You three should get headed home," he called from inside.

"Home-home or Den-home?" asked Boyd, forehead resting on the edge of the table. It was late and he'd been up the night before at the rink.

There was an awkward pause, and the three exchanged worried looks. It was the weekend, and Derek always invited them to stay at the Den when it was the weekend. Isaac was the one who stayed there permanently, since he had no other home to go to anymore. Boyd and Erica at least had someplace to go if they chose.

"Den, of course," Derek told them, poking his head out. "Is that even a question still?"

Isaac paled a little when he realized that Boyd's question might have implied that they didn't consider the Den home, not yet. "You just seem... upset," Isaac said, and it was true; he could practically smell the anger and guilt radiating from their alpha. Anger, guilt and... that something else. Something Isaac knew. "Like maybe you want to be left alone."

The expression which flickered across Derek's face at the word told them that being alone was the absolute last thing Derek wanted.

"Just... go home, and I'll be there in a bit. Get some sleep- I stopped to get breakfast stuff, so we can sleep in and cook tomorrow morning. Ok?" Derek asked.

Isaac tried to ignore the way Erica and Boyd's heartbeats picked up at the strange peace offering. His own was thumping hard in his chest; something was _wrong_. It wasn't that Derek never made them breakfast, or that Derek was never nice to them. But this was... different. This was an apology for something he wasn't telling them, and that meant that something was wrong. Something had happened, and Derek still believed he had to handle it alone. Something had _happened_ and Isaac was certain it had to do with that scent... if only he could put his finger on it.

"But-"

"No," Isaac interrupted Erica's protest. Her attention snapped angrily to him, but he raised one eyebrow in a silent demand that she trust him. "Let's just get home. We can talk tomorrow morning, right Derek?"

Derek looked between the two, knew that something was up, but nodded anyway. "Yes."

"Ok. So, Erica... why don't you get Boyd up to the car, and I'll be up in a just a minute. I... want to show Derek something I found in one of the books."

It was a lie. They all heard it, but Erica nodded the same as Derek had, and prodded Boyd to his feet. They shuffled away from the table, clambering up the steps like zombies. Just before they disappeared at the top, Erica looked back to where Isaac and Derek were watching them leave. "Hurry up if you want a ride," she called back down.

Their footsteps faded and all the while Isaac kept his eyes trained on Derek's. He had recognized the scent Derek carried. The one that had been maddeningly familiar. It was the same one Scott wore when he left Isaac's den. To his credit, Derek never looked away, only stared sedately back, waiting. Finally Isaac cleared his throat.

"I'm not saying you have bad taste but... he's human." He didn't say it with any particular malice; in fact it sounded more like a passing observation than anything else.

Derek seemed to have been expecting that because he just scowled. "It's none of your business."

"It wouldn't be any of my business," he agreed. "If you weren't my alpha. But you are. So, are you going to tell me what happened?"

"Nothing," Derek bit out and it was clearly a lie.

"Bullshit," Isaac spat out. He didn't back down, not when Derek's eyes flashed red, not when his lips pulled back from sharp canines in an attempt to cow his beta. "I can _smell_ how much not-nothing happened, Derek. Aren't you supposed to trust us? We're your pack. If something is wrong with you, someone is wrong with all of us."

Derek dropped his gaze, closed his eyes. He didn't want to be having this conversation. "In the morning," he said at last, sounding utterly exhausted. "I'll talk to all of you about it in the morning, ok?"

Isaac frowned, but decided that was the best he was going to get out of the stubborn alpha. "Fine," he agreed reluctantly. "Should I invite Scott to breakfast?"

"No," Derek told him. "He'll bring Stiles."

"Maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing," Isaac said quietly, raising an eyebrow when Derek looked at him. "Just a thought."

"I don't want to see Stiles," Derek bit out. "I'll see you at the house."

For just one more moment Isaac hung back from leaving, raking his eyes over Derek in an attempt to see some indication that the guy wasn't going to fall apart if he were left alone. He decided that yes, Derek would join them at the house. He would be alone, and he would tell them he wanted to be alone. Isaac would know better, would probably sleep in Derek's room for a while tonight until Derek kicked him out.

But it wasn't Isaac that Derek wanted.

He shook his head, turned away and shuffled toward the stairs. When he reached the bottom he looked back, caught Derek just standing there watching him, obviously not having anything he meant to do before leaving the station. He just wanted to be away from the others.

"You shouldn't lie," Isaac called softly, knowing Derek would hear him in the quiet of the dead station. "You do want to see him."

Derek made a rude gesture but Isaac just grinned and bounded up the stairs to join his pack mates.


	5. Chapter 5

The incessant jingle of his phone woke him the next morning, dragging him groggily from the deep of his dream world. He fought wakefulness, trying to avoid all the inevitable aches he knew were inbound. If he just didn't wake up he wouldn't have to face the previous night and its consequences. But the phone was ringing, and it was Scott, because it had to be Scott; it was always Scott at this hour.

It was not far past dawn outside but there was enough sunlight streaming through his windows for him to squint and flail around blindly in an attempt to find the offending technology. His movements ceased as his fingers touched the smooth screen of his phone and he snatched it up. He mashed his fingers on the screen until it stopped shrieking at him, and put it to his ear.

"Oh my god, you have no sense of decency," he groaned into the phone. His voice was hoarse, squeaked on his vowels. He swallowed the sigh that rose in his chest, wishing that karma could at least have had the decency to make it _sound_ like he hadn't spent his night shouting.

"You sound like crap!" Scott told him, surprise evident. It was clear he hadn't meant to say that first and before Stiles could waylay that train of thought, Scott redirected himself. "Dude you aren't going to believe what we found!"

"I bet I will," Stiles said tiredly.

Now that he was awake he was becoming conscious of how much, exactly, his body hated him. Exercise he was used to- running, cradling the lacrosse stick, shooting, more running. Weights. Sit-ups. Push-ups. Somehow, he had found entirely new muscle groups to exercise and they were speaking their minds about the idea in ways that made Stiles regret his life decisions about knowing werewolves.

"The book Gerard was looking through?" Scott plowed onward, oblivious to Stiles' sarcasm after so many years. "It was _Kate's journal_. Like from years ago."

 _That_ was new, Stiles thought, sitting up and wishing he hadn't. His head was pounding like he'd drunk an entire fifth the night before. "How many years ago are we talking?"

"Dude, she wrote about the Hale fire," Scott said. "Did you know she _drugged_ Derek to get him to tell her about his family?" There was a noise in the background that Stiles assumed was Allison talking. "Yeah. Yeah," Scott agreed with whatever she had said. "And this is the weirdest part; the wolfsbane is a hybrid strain."

"Yeah, I know," Stiles said, scrubbing down his face with one hand. He really just wanted to go back to sleep and deal with this in a few more hours. "I- we found some references to it last night."

There was a pause and Stiles pulled his phone away from his ear to make sure they hadn't been disconnected. Nope. "You didn't call," Scott said, and then Stiles heard Allison asking questions and Scott was covering the receiving port to answer her.

"Look, I just didn't- it was late by the time I got home," Stiles said, doing his best to keep to the truth. It _had_ been late. "What else did you find out about it? Anything?"

Thankfully Scott seemed willing to forgive the transgression of non-contact. "Oh yeah," he said. "The plant that it was hybridized to was a plant used in... uh... _mating rituals_."

"What?" The word fell out of Stiles' mouth before he could contain it. "Like werewolf mating rituals?" _Seems to mesmerize werewolves._

"Yes, Stiles." The reply was impatient, followed by shuffling noises as the phone traded hands.

"Stiles?" It was Allison now. "Kate writes here that the original strain of wolfsbane they hybridized became a _lot_ more effective afterward. Listen to this: ' _The Hale kid was willing to do anything I suggested. Hell, he was spilling secrets before I even asked. I could have made him do anything. I wonder if I could have gotten him to light the fire himself? Probably._ '"

The line went silent and Stiles' stomach turned over, making him feel sick. "Sounds like pretty nasty stuff," he managed, but his voice was strained, choked.

"Are you ok?" she asked. He could hear Scott asking questions in the background now. "Stiles?"

 _I could have made him do anything_.

"I'm fine," he said hoarsely.

But he wasn't fine. All he could think of, all that consumed him in that moment was how severe of a mistake he had made last night.

"You don't sound fine," Allison told him, and then began to bicker with Scott with the receiver covered. She lost the argument swiftly and then Scott's voice was in his ear again.

"You have to read this stuff," Scott was telling him. "We're coming over."

"Scott, no-" Stiles almost shouted, but the connection was already gone.

He cursed, tossed his phone toward his desk and moved to throw open the window. As quickly as he could he set a fan to push air out, and then turned to the task of bundling up his bedding. Even to his poor human sense of smell, it reeked of Derek, of their night. Scott was going to know the moment he arrived.

He shoved the bedding into the wash, and then stripped to include the rest of his clothing. Grabbing a clean towel, he scooted to the shower and turned it up as high as he could stand. It was too hot, almost miserable, and he stayed under the spray scrubbing until his skin felt raw. It would have to be good enough, because their houses were not that far apart even if Scott had to drive with Allison.

Wrapped in his towel, he scuttled back to his room and pulled out clean clothes from the deepest recesses of his drawers. They smelled of old and wood, very stale. He was in the middle of doing his best to spray air freshener about the room when his phone beeped to alert him to a new text. It should have been Scott, alerting him that he'd arrived, but when he tapped the screen, he was surprised to see a different name.

Lydia Martin.

_WTH, Stilinski. IDK why you are looking up werewolf mating information, but it had better not involve me and Jackson._

His phone dinged again and the alert covered the previous message. Again, from Lydia.

_"Use on the new moon will draw an Alpha to its mate and render them both helpless to desire. Vulnerable during coupling." I don't want to know._

His brain tried to come up with a valid explanation for the pair of texts and it was only after much consideration that he remembered the beginning of the evening. He had sent her a snapshot of the Latin that was in the journal, hoping she could translate it. Apparently she hadn't found it until this morning, and he realized that without context the image would seem pretty sketchy. He didn't have time to worry about it though, because the doorbell was ringing and he was still sitting in just a towel on the edge of his bed.

"Come in," he called, not particularly loudly. Scott would hear him, especially with the window open. "Stay down there, I'm getting dressed," he added, which would seem more reasonable if Allison had accompanied his best friend. Even though they were not dating, she still ended up hanging around him. Stiles felt bad for Scott; at least Lydia avoided him like the plague. At least she made an attempt at letting him get over her, even if it was unconscious. Even if he wasn't sure he ever would.

He finished pulling on clothes, used too much deodorant and sprayed himself with air freshener _just in case_ and then ambled down the stairs as fast as he could without hurting himself. Scott and Allison had taken seats in his front room and both shot to their feet when they saw him. Seeing Scott's face, he knew he had probably failed completely.

"Dude, _what happened_?" Scott said breathlessly, eyes wide as he stared at the marks on Stiles' neck, the only ones visible.

"I got into a fight," Stiles said, not caring that Scott could hear his heartbeat.

"With a vacuum cleaner?" Allison asked dryly, though he could tell she was bothered as well.

"With an alpha," Stiles bit out. "Can we just look at the notebook?"

Allison and Scott exchanged glances, and then the book was in Stiles' hands. It was just a spiral bound notebook, like any person shopping for school supplies might have picked up. It was one of the half sized ones, meant more for personal writing than for class note taking. Stiles thanked Allison with a look and then cracked it open, scanning the neat, bubbly handwriting. Every page was filled, additions scrawled into the margins.

"My dad called while we were driving over," Allison said softly, watching to gauge Stiles' reaction. "He said one of his friends called from overseas... about Gerard. He told my dad that Gerard was going to get himself killed."

Stiles glanced up, brows raised in question. "By who? Werewolves?"

She shook her head. "By the people who created the hybrid." She looked to Scott, who shrugged as if to say they might as well tell all. "Apparently some werewolves found out what was going on, when they were creating it. And they went batshit."

"They killed like a _ton_ of hunters, they burned down a couple laboratories, set wildfires where the other plant grew," Scott interjected, unable to contain himself. "Stiles, they killed off _an entire freaking branch_ of the Argent family tree."

"Oh my god," Stiles said, eyes wide, notebook forgotten in his hands. "So, what? They just... destroyed all of it and anyone working with it?"

"Yeah," Allison said. "It seems that way."

"Then... how did _Kate_ get any?" Stiles asked, confused. She shouldn't have been able to drug Derek with it if it had all been destroyed.

"That... we don't know," Allison told him, motioning to the book. "She gives a name, but it's not one I recognize. I asked my dad, and he doesn't either, but he said he would ask around about them."

Stiles looked down at the pages, eyes tracing the words without reading them. "So if she found some, Gerard might find some. And if Gerard finds some..."

"We could have another war on our hands," Allison finished. She met Stiles' gaze when he looked up. "Yeah."

"But someone found Gerard," Stiles said. "Someone knows what he's up to right? And the hunters won't want another bloodbath. The werewolves might not stop this time."

"Stop?" echoed Scott.

"Well, yeah," Stiles said, as if it was the most obvious conclusion in the world. "You said they wiped out an entire branch _of Argents_. They didn't kill all of them, right? I mean, they didn't kill all the hunters everywhere. Sounds like they were pissed enough to do that, but they kept it to the people involved. They played nice, even if the hunters were going to try to fight unfairly."

The three considered this for a long moment, sharing glances, letting the idea rattle around inside their minds before Scott spoke up. "We should tell Derek," he concluded aloud. Allison nodded her agreement.

Stiles tried to keep the uncomfortable look off his face, but his heartbeat struck up the tempo without his permission. "Yeah, you guys should," he said. "I don't really want to talk to him right now."

Scott rolled his eyes, made an irritated noise in the back of his throat. "You're a really bad liar," he said. "You were a pretty bad liar before I was a werewolf."

Groaning, Stiles snapped the notebook shut and shoved it in Allison's direction. "Can we not discuss this right now? There are actual problems that need solving."

"I feel like how much you smell of Derek Hale is an actual problem," Scott pointed out as Stiles began to herd them toward the front door. Stiles made a choked noise in the back of his throat. "Or the number of hickeys-"

"Bruises," Stiles sighed.

"-On your neck are a problem," Scott finished, allowing himself to be steered. "Like something we should seriously talk about immediately."

Stiles drew open the front door and indicated how exactly it should be used with a flourish of one arm, pointing to the outside. "It's none of your business," he told them both.

Scooting past them, Allison abandoned ship and headed for the car, leaving the two of them alone at the front door. Scott's eyes never left Stiles'. "You're my best friend and - until I can figure some things out - Derek is my alpha. I feel like there aren't a lot of things in this world that are more my business."

Stiles sighed heavily, dropped his gaze because he _did_ want to talk to Scott about this, wanted to tell him everything that had happened, but he wasn't even sure what had happened, himself. He just needed time to sort it out, to maybe apologize or to get an apology, he wasn't really sure except that he knew something had been done wrong.

"Look, it..." he began, then hesitated. Looked back up to his best friend. "It was a long night, ok? I did something kind of dumb. Derek had a book with a lot of different wolfsbane species in it; and not just, like, written in it, but preserved inside it. There was some of the kind we're looking for."

Scott frowned, trying to connect the dots and having a difficult time of it. "And...?"

"And the entry said that it would enhance the senses if a human took any of it," Stiles said impatiently. "So..."

"So _you did_?" Scott nearly squawked, eyes widening.

Stiles closed his eyes, lips pursing. "Yeah, I said it was dumb, ok?"

"Really dumb," Scott agreed. "But I don't see how it... you know." He motioned vaguely toward his own neck, to indicate the marks Stiles had received.

"Yeah, well, it _enhanced_ a lot of other things," Stiles ground out, cheeks flushing. Scott flushed a little as well. "Ok? So, I haven't gotten to talk to him yet. I'm not even sure I can."

"Isn't it a good thing?" Scott gave him a small, confused look. "I mean, yeah, you probably have better taste in women than men, but... Derek's getting things together, right?"

"Yeah," Stiles agreed, in the tone that said 'you're an idiot.' "Yeah, and I'm sure he'll be totally on board with my use of the same wolfsbane Kate drugged him with to burn his family to death in his home."

Scott swallowed and had the good sense to look guilty. "Oh. That's not good."

"No, that's not good," Stiles agreed, and then motioned out to where Allison leaned against the door of the car, watching them. "Let's just... get this Gerard thing sorted out and worry about my bad decisions later."

Giving him a resigned look, Scott nodded. Stiles nodded back, forging their agreement in the unspoken terms of best friends. They were both agreeing that there was a bigger, badder problem that needed solving. Scott was letting it go not because it didn't matter, but because it did. Stiles was agreeing that he would ask for help if he needed it.

He desperately hoped he wouldn't need it.

* * *

The scent of bacon and raw eggs was almost overpowering to Scott as Boyd drew open the front door to greet them. Allison stayed a half step behind Scott as they crossed the threshold, aware that even though she was doing her best to make amends with the pack they were still somewhat wary of her. Boyd had not forgiven her for shooting Erica, but he tolerated her because of Scott and Derek. Scott reached behind him, took her hand as they entered, and gave Boyd a look that told him to get over it.

They wove their way through the house to the kitchen, were Isaac and Erica sat groggily at the long wooden table. It was not the sturdiest piece of furniture, but it was big enough for the entire pack to have space to eat regardless of their table manners. Isaac perked a little as they entered, and pointed the blue mug in his hands toward the pot of coffee on the counter beside the doorway. There were empty mugs gathered around it like children listening to a story, and Scott filled two of them. He passed one to Allison with a soft smile, and began to fill his own with sugar and flavored creamer.

She shook her head, and left hers black as she moved for the table. Carefully, aware of who sat where, she placed Isaac between herself and Boyd's seat beside Erica, leaving a space for Scott to sit between her and Isaac. Stiles, if he showed, would sit to her other side, but she doubted he had plans to arrive. Technically she and Scott hadn't even been invited, but Scott had decided that the pack _needed_ to know this information in person. Isaac had texted him the night before that they absolutely were not having breakfast together tomorrow morning if Scott had found any information, which of course meant that they were and Derek didn't want them there.

Scott was very interested in doing things Derek didn't want him to do.

So she wasn't surprised to see the scowl on Derek's face when he watched them enter, but she was surprised that he didn't say anything about it. She was surprised to notice that he'd already put on enough food for both of them, as if he had just expected they would be there. She smiled into the rim of her coffee mug, because even if she was still angry with him, even if she would never forgive him for biting her mother, he was not as badass as he wanted them to believe. He had soft spots for mouthy betas.

"It's too early for this," Erica groaned, her head cradled on her folded arms. She was watching Boyd as he poured himself another cup. "I distinctly remember someone saying we could sleep in."

"You slept in," Derek said, not looking up from where he pushed the sizzling bacon around in a pan.

"Twenty minutes is not sleeping in, Derek," she informed him tartly. "Not when we were up so late."

He didn't have a response to that, simply began moving the bacon from the pan to a plate covered in paper towels. When the pan was empty, he reached over and picked up a large bowl and tipped the contents of it into the pan of grease. The smell of raw, scrambled eggs flushed through the room, causing the werewolves at the table to lift their noses slightly. Isaac even closed his eyes to inhale, enjoying the breakfast scents. Derek plucked a spatula from the counter and began scraping at the mixture as it cooked.

"We found some interesting stuff last night," Scott offered when the silence stretched just a little too thin. Allison laid the journal down atop the table, pushed it toward Boyd's fingers when he reached for it. "That's Kate Argent's journal. We think that's how Gerard found out about the wolfsbane."

"Who is Kate Argent?" asked Boyd, thumbing through the pages without really reading them. Erica, who was watching over his arm, gave him a look. Obviously he was so tired he did not remember what Derek had told them.

"Who _was_ Kate Argent," corrected Peter from the doorway. Allison was the only one who jumped; the rest had heard his approach, the soft sound of him closing the front door. "She was Derek's high school sweetie."

Derek's shoulders, already tensed from the mention of her name, dropped at the needling, happy tone his uncle used. Peter swept into the room and laid down a bagged loaf of thick, freshly-baked sourdough bread and bag with a small collection of fruit preserves. Isaac was the only one still watching Derek when Peter next spoke.

"One day, she fed him a wolfsbane concoction brewed from the lovely strain you're all researching, and he told her _everything_ about us," Peter told them as he skirted the table to get to the toaster. "Including how susceptible we are to _fire_. Toast, anyone?"

When the awkward silence had stretched sufficiently on, Peter shrugged and popped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster. Derek flinched at the metallic clunk, still pushing eggs around the pan as they cooked. Erica and Boyd were staring at Scott as if he was somehow capable of fixing it, but it was Isaac who broke the mood. He cleared his throat and got up to get plates out of the cupboard. They were plastic, as no one had been able to force Derek out to shop for real ones yet.

"All the funnest stories involve you, Peter," he said dryly, remembering how they had first been introduced. "So you have experience with this wolfsbane?" he asked in Derek's direction.

"Enough to say that if Gerard gets his hands on some, we're going to be in trouble," Derek told them as he began sprinkling shredded cheese over the top of the piping hot egg mixture. They were just runny enough the cheese would cook into them like it belonged there. "If he's looking for another bite, one that _won't_ be burned out of his system like last time, he'll get it. Once a werewolf is dosed with that stuff, they can't resist the control."

"I hear it affects alphas differently," Peter said casually, peering into the toaster as he waited. He glanced sidelong at Derek, a small smile quirking at the corner of his lips. He could practically feel the curious stares of the pack behind him. "The last time as a beta, Laura found you lost and gibbering in the woods. That was a very disjointed memory I took from you. Not one of your best moments."

Derek actually _growled_ at him, spatula pressed hard enough into the pan that that the metal shaft began to bend. Peter swallowed whatever he had planned to say next and let Derek calm down again. As he walked past, Isaac smacked Peter upside the head with the small stack of plates, giving him a glare. When his back was turned, Peter made a face and then grabbed his toast as it popped. He didn't bother tossing the pieces between his hands, just let the heat burn into his fingertips. It would heal.

"Anyway," Allison said, accepting a plate from Isaac. "If my grandfather gets some of this stuff-"

"He will," Peter assured them, setting the toast on the top plate of the stack so that Isaac had to give him one. "He's probably gone to the same place we got our sprig."

Derek made a thoroughly irritated noise, turning to glare at Peter.

"Oh, right," Peter said as if revelation had dawned upon him. He began to spread preserves on his toast without looking at his nephew. "We're not supposed to have that. Or tell anyone you took some last night."

The group, as one, turned to look at Derek, who rolled his eyes. "I didn't take any," he said levelly, and the werewolves of the group could hear how even his heartbeat remained. This caused Peter to tilt his head slightly, brows drawn together at his apparently inaccurate conclusion. "Stiles did."

" _Stiles_?" Peter exclaimed, along with three of the others. Scott already knew, and had told Allison on the drive. "So- oh. _Oh._ " Peter took a look at the betas at the table, both hands holding the plate of toast, and decided that he definitely had business elsewhere. Without saying anything else, he turned and left.

"This has been the third most awkward meal of my life so far," Scott stated plainly. He rose, grabbed a two slices of bread, and popped them in the still-warm toaster. "So, Peter seemed pretty certain Gerard was going to get his hands on some of this wolfsbane. Is there something you're not telling us? Again?"

Sighing, Derek pulled the eggs from the heat and scraped them into a large bowl on the counter. They had cooked just a touch too long with the interruption provided by Peter, but were still pretty soft. "My great grandfather, Peter's grandfather, visited a greenhouse in Europe when he was young. It was full of rare or supposedly extinct species of plants."

"Including our wolfsbane," Erica concluded aloud.

"Yes. He purchased a sprig of it, to attempt to study it," Derek explained. "He should have destroyed the plant, but werewolves have always been on good terms with that nursery. They've provided a lot of... help."

"Sounds like they were helping the hunters as well, if Kate had some," Boyd pointed out gruffly.

"Kate stole what she had from me," Derek ground out, setting the bowl on the table, along with the plate of bacon. He began to move for the fridge as the betas looked uncomfortably amongst themselves. "It's in the past," Derek told them, pulling a container of pre-sliced fruit from the fridge. "Eat your breakfast."

The group began to pass around the food as Derek put out juice and milk and glasses. Without discussing it, they all retracted their hands and watched when he reached for his own plate, waited quietly as he put eggs and bacon on a plate. Even Scott relinquished the toast he'd been making when Derek handed him two pieces of bread to replace it. Allison was as fascinated as the first time she had seen the behavior; there was always talk of Derek being the alpha but it was moments like these where it was really _evident_.

"So he never found an antidote?" Erica asked. "Your great grandfather?"

"No," Derek said, taking a seat at the head of the table. "Or if he did, he never wrote it down. If he told anyone, it died in the fire."

"What about being immune?" Boyd asked. When everyone looked at him, he shrugged. "That Martin girl is immune right?"

The group considered this, but Allison shook her head. "But we don't know why, or if it can be transferred. We probably don't have the kind of time it would take to find out."

"But there's someone that might already know," Isaac pointed out softly, pushing eggs around his plate with the side of his fork. "Someone who knows a lot about this stuff already?"

"Deaton?" Derek asked. Isaac nodded.

"That's not a bad idea," Scott agreed. "Maybe you should take what you have left of the plant and go see him, Derek. Maybe he knows something about it, or about an antidote. Even just a way to resist it would be worthwhile. Anything."

Derek frowned, but the rest of the pack was looking like it agreed as well and even he had to admit that it was as good a plan as any. Better than any others they had so far, and so he nodded. "Ok," he consented. "I'll go over after breakfast, see what we can find out."

Scott smiled, turning his attention to the meal along with the others. For a moment Derek watched them, watched the way the sunlight streamed through the brand new windows, glittered across the faces of the pack. His pack. He allowed himself the briefest of moments to just enjoy it before reminding himself that, once again, the people he loved were in danger and it was going to be his fault.

* * *

The vet clinic closed early on weekends, but he knew that Deaton would be there for a little while after he had flipped the sign, cleaning and preparing things for the coming week. Scott normally helped with those duties, but he had the weekend off and Deaton hadn't quite actually hired Isaac yet, despite how many hours he spent hanging out around the clinic. Isaac hadn't _asked_.

He didn't slam the door to his Jeep but the sound was loud in the quiet afternoon lull. Pocketing his keys, he squared his shoulders, and prepared to tell Deaton too much information. It was perhaps a bad plan, but while the wolf gang was working out solutions amongst themselves, this was the one thing Stiles could do; ask Deaton for help.

The moment he pushed open the door, the scent of animal and medicine washed over him, but there was something else which twined around him, something familiar. His eyes slid closed as he let the intoxicating scent course through him until the clack of the door to the procedure area dragged him back.

"Stiles?" Dr. Deaton asked, sounding a little confused. "Are you ok? Can I help you?" He could see the edges of the marks on Stiles' throat.

Stiles grasped at the tendrils of coherent thought still wavering in his mind, tried to remember why he had come to the clinic. It was something to do with this scent, wasn't it? The- the wolfsbane, his mind stuttered at him. He was here- "I have to ask you about the wolfsbane," Stiles blurted, grabbing onto the thought with everything he had.

Recognition lit Deaton's eyes and he nodded. "The hybrid," he said evenly, and then moved forward to open the gate so that Stiles could walk around behind the counter. "Come on in back. We're working on an antidote right now. Maybe you can help."

"We?" Stiles asked somewhat foggily as he followed Deaton. "Scott came here?"

Deaton chuckled and opened the door to the back and Stiles froze.

Derek.

Seated on a stool, leaning heavily on one of the procedure tables, skin ashen and eyes the color of ice. He looked haggard, but when he saw Stiles standing with wide eyes in the doorway, he shot upright so straight Stiles thought he might have broken something. The scent, the same heady, earthy scent that Stiles now recognized as the same one from the night before, filled the room, assaulted him as he locked gazes with the werewolf.

Deaton took in the two of them, the sudden, complete rigidity of Stiles' body, the way Derek sat strung tight enough to snap, and laid a hand on Stiles' shoulder. "Stiles?"

"You-" Stiles choked, shaking his head, trying to clear it. "You dosed him."

"Yes," Deaton agreed. "He asked me to. So we could try to find an antidote before Gerard returns."

"And you didn't," Stiles concluded. He knew they hadn't, because he could smell it on Derek even without the enhanced senses. Derek was just _staring_ at him and it wasn't helping and how could Deaton not _smell_ that? "Did- did he tell- last night I-"

"I know," Deaton said, saving him from having to try to find words through the haze. "He told me you took some. That was a very reckless thing to do, Stiles. Wolfsbane is poisonous to humans."

"Poisonous," Stiles agreed, voice shaky. "It didn't poison me." Derek scoffed and it seemed to cost him a lot to remain in his seat afterward.

Deaton was nodding, subtly placing himself between Derek and Stiles, assuming they'd had some sort of altercation the night before. "Perhaps because it is a hybrid species," Deaton suggested calmly. He needed Stiles to focus. "What can you tell me about the effects?"

Stiles shuddered, tried to ignore the way his body responded to the reminder. Derek's nostrils flared and he knew there was no hiding it from the werewolf. "It... heightened senses," Stiles said, and felt dirty just saying those words with everything they would imply to Derek. "It was really hot. Warm," he added because Derek had let out a guttural sound. He could feel his face flushing red. "And I... I smelled something amazing. It was you."

Derek groaned, hands gripping the sides of the procedure table. "Stiles," he ground out through clenched jaw. "Stop. Talking."

Deaton took that his cue to talk instead, seeing as the other two were becoming less capable the more they spoke. "Arrhythmia and fever can be some of the effects of the wolfsbane," he told them. "Did you feel dizzy at all? Confused? Sick?"

"Dizzy," Stiles agreed. "Very confused. But not sick. Just..."

"Aroused," Derek groaned and Stiles was unable to swallow the small noise he made in response. Even though Deaton had only given Derek a small dose, it was thick in his system, at the peak of its effectiveness. Deaton had asked questions and Stiles _wasn't answering them_. Derek had to instead. Didn't he have to?

"He's been answering questions," Deaton explained to Stiles, who wasn't really paying attention to him anymore. "I didn't want to try giving him orders to do anything, although I think that I could. I'm afraid that anyone could give him an order and he would follow it."

The notion that, at that moment, Derek would do anything Stiles asked of him, was actually what grounded Stiles, reminded him that the night before had been a horrible, horrible mistake. He had been responsible for forcing Derek into a situation where he was as helpless as Kate had made him years ago. Making him do things he didn't want to do. He swallowed thickly and took a deep breath.

"Ok," he rasped, then cleared his throat, straightened his shoulders. The action did nothing to keep Derek calm. "Don't tell Dr. Deaton anything about last night."

Both Deaton and Derek looked taken aback at the command, and then Deaton's eyes lit up. "Stiles, that's brilliant!"

"It is?" Stiles asked weakly, because it didn't feel brilliant. It felt desperate.

"Yes," Deaton confirmed, then he finally released Stiles and walked across the room, took a seat opposite Derek and drew his attention. Not an easy task with Stiles standing in the doorway. "Derek, focus. Tell me what happened last night."

"No," Derek said without hesitation.

Deaton's face lit into a smile and he banged both hands flat atop the procedure table in excitement. The sound caused both to jump and Derek's claws bit into the metal for a split second before retracting. "There!" Deaton exclaimed, then turned to Stiles. "He hasn't been able to tell me no yet. You gave him an order and I gave him a contradictory order, which he was able to resist."

"Oh," Stiles said. "Sh-Should we try again?"

For a moment Deaton hesitated, and then he nodded. "Sure." He looked back to Derek, who was glaring at him now. "Derek, please count to ten and then stand up."

Almost immediately Stiles quipped: "Don't stand up."

The seconds ticked by and Stiles counted them in his head to stay sane, but ten came and went without any motion on Derek's part. Confused, Deaton turned to Stiles. "I admit, I don't understand."

But Stiles did. On some level Stiles knew what was going on and so before he could think too much about it, he repeated Deaton's order. "Derek, count to ten and then stand up." He kept his eyes locked on Deaton because he didn't want to see Derek glaring at him.

Catching on, Deaton gave the counter order. "Derek, don't stand up."

Eight. Nine. Ten.

Derek pushed back from the table, staggering upright.

"It's him," Derek managed, breathing hard. His eyes closed as he tried to focus on something, anything, anything that wasn't Stiles. "I can't..."

One more step into the room and Stiles halted with a jerk. He wanted to move closer, to put his hands on Derek, to tell him it was ok. He knew it would be unwelcome, but he wanted to anyway. "Me?" he asked softly.

"I can ignore him... if you tell me to," Derek ground out slowly, the effort of speaking on his own under the influence almost overpowering. "You..." He swallowed the rest of the sentence, opened his eyes.

"Why?" Stiles breathed.

"Last night," Derek told him, but the sentence was unfinished. He made a pained noise, shoved himself away from the table and grabbed his coat. "Scott. Test Scott."

And then he was gone, tearing open the back exit, disappearing into the sunlight. Left alone, Deaton and Stiles both stared after him for a moment. Stiles slumped against the counter to his right, hand on his chest to cover how much it felt like something was being pulled out of him. He had to fight the instinct to follow Derek out of the building.

What just _happened_?

Deaton was first to raise his eyebrows, finally turning to look at the teen. "So. What happened last night?"

Stiles just sighed and sank to the floor. This was going to be a mess.


	6. Chapter 6

The sharp prick of an early morning sunbeam woke Isaac, caused him to squint his eyes more tightly shut and bury his nose in the soft, brown hair at the nape of Scott's neck. For a moment he allowed himself to enjoy the feel of the boy pressed all along the length of him, their ankles crossed together, Isaac's arm tucked protectively over Scott. He finally smelled like himself, of earth and spiced body wash and the peculiar tang that was human and werewolf both. No more wolfsbane.

The other boy had spent the previous afternoon drugged and unhappy in the back of the vet clinic and had been forced to spend the night so as not to freak out his mother. As he listened to the soft draw of Scott's breath, the smooth heartbeat against his stomach, Isaac regretted nothing. Scott was fine, and he and Deaton had probably learned a lot. If it required that Isaac stay wrapped up in Scott all night while Scott sweated out the poison, well, he couldn't exactly complain.

Giving in to the sunbeam that was shining so insistently upon him, Isaac cracked open his eyes, peeked over Scott's ear. Allison was awake, her forehead resting gently against Scott's, her fingers curled to her palms so that her knuckles rested against his belly. Isaac returned her smile when she saw him, extended his long, slender fingers until she could twine hers with them. She looked exhausted and he wondered if she even slept at all. He wondered if he would have, if it had been his mate in Scott's state.

She gave him a tired shake of her head, tightened her fingers in his to catch him as he made to rise, so he sank back down. When she closed her eyes, he understood; she just wanted to pretend, for a little longer, that the world was slow and simple, warm and safe. It had been a long night. Derek hadn't come to fetch any of them, so he must have known that Scott needed rest. Isaac curled himself around Scott once more, nuzzled into the back of his neck, and decided just to enjoy the reprieve.

It was a little strange, to have Allison sharing his bed while Scott was in the room. It was new, recent, but not the first time. The first time had been the night they finished renovations on the house, over a week ago, when everyone had spent the night. Derek had unveiled the television and the pack had fallen asleep on the couches and chairs and floor, reruns still flickering on the screen. Isaac had woken sometime in the night, bones hurting from how he had lain on the floor, and retreated to his room. It was not long before a sleepy Scott and Allison had tumbled through his door and into his bed as if they did so every night.

Isaac slept well that night, perhaps better than he had in years, curled up between the two of them.

He hadn't, by a long stretch, forgiven Allison for how she had attacked his pack, how she had shot Erica and Boyd, slashed Isaac's back to ribbons, tried to kill Derek, rejected Scott. She wasn't on good terms with anyone- but especially not herself. She was in pain, and Isaac could understand it. She'd had her world turned upside down just as badly as the rest of them in the past few months. She had lost her mother without a chance to say goodbye, and her aunt, who was practically her sister. Her grandfather had manipulated her, confused her, turned her against her friends.

But they _were_ her friends.

She was Scott's mate, a fact that he could smell all over Scott whenever he was with her. She was still deciding if she would accept the bond, though Isaac suspected she would when she had sorted through her feelings. She would be crazy not to, in his opinion. Scott would be an alpha someday, the leader of a strong pack; even though he was barely a beta at present.

Perhaps, he thought softly, that was why he had accepted Allison for now. She was a part of Scott, and Isaac just wanted as much of Scott as he could have. He was willing to follow Scott wherever he would choose to go, whether he became an alpha or stayed Derek's beta. Scott, on the other hand, loved Allison, wanted her to be a part of his pack - whichever pack that was - as much as he wanted Isaac to be Pack as well.

Isaac knew that wanting Scott meant accepting that Allison would, in some way, be a part of his life as well.

Scott stirred then, reached back over his shoulder to thread his fingers sleepily through Isaac's curls. "Morning," he mumbled, and it turned into a yawn.

A smile stole onto Isaac's lips. "How ya feeling?" he asked against the skin of Scott's shoulder. He wondered at what point during the night Scott had shed his shirt.

"Like someone took a sledgehammer to my head from two different directions," Scott said mournfully. "Remind me again why I let Stiles talk me into taking any of that stuff?"

"For the greater good?" Allison murmured, a cheeky smile lighting up her face.

Scott snorted and Isaac asked: "What did you find? You weren't exactly coherent when Allison brought you here."

"Practically nothing," Scott admitted. "He seriously tried giving me a million different things but..."

"You still followed his orders," Allison finished. She caught Isaac's eye over Scott's shoulder. "It wasn't pretty."

Isaac murmured agreement. He didn't want to think about having his actions be utterly under the control of someone else. At least when it came to Derek, he obeyed out of instinct, but if he exerted enough control he could resist. It just wasn't worth it most of the time, and Derek didn't push as much as he used to anyway.

"Nothing worked then." He didn't mean to sound as defeated as he did. "At least you didn't have to spend the whole day with cranky Derek."

"If he feels anything like how I feel right now, he's only going to be crankier this morning," Scott told him, and then shifted as something new occurred to him. "I wonder if that's why he let everyone sleep in?"

Isaac made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. Derek probably wasn't feeling as bad as Scott; Derek had only had one dose of the wolfsbane, and he'd come home to work through it around the pack. They couldn't order him around because they weren't human, but Derek treated them as if they might try. He'd spent whatever part of the afternoon he wasn't curled up fighting the effects asserting his position as alpha.

Eventually he had calmed, around about the time that Scott had arrived with Allison, in time for a late dinner. Derek had insisted on making food for everyone, although Boyd and Erica had chased him out of the kitchen when he burned the garlic bread before the water for the pasta even came to a full boil. After that he'd just sat at the table with his chin on his folded arms, watching the two of them flit around the kitchen setting the table and cooking the meal. He looked like he'd been kicked.

After dinner, Isaac had herded everyone out of the kitchen and then turned on the small radio on the counter to cover the conversation. He had asked Derek what was wrong, aside from the obvious, and Derek had ignored him in favor of scrubbing pans in the sink as if they had personally offended him. Isaac just sat on the counter, legs swinging so that his heels clunked on the cupboards until Derek was ready to throttle him.

"We have to figure this out," Derek bit out at last.

Isaac halted his rhythm on the cupboards, cocked his head. "We will, won't we?"

Derek let out a breathy sound, almost a growl, full of frustration. "Fast enough?" he asked. "I don't know. I-" he paused, loosened his grip on the handle of the pot he was cleaning. He pursed his lips, and then turned to face Isaac, his voice pitched so that it didn't reach over the sound of the radio. "My father told Laura and I about this wolfsbane, but only once. And I was really young. He said that his grandfather had thought there was a way to resist the effects."

"That's great!" Isaac exclaimed, barely a breath. He glanced toward the doorway, to where the others had disappeared. He could hear them, Scott and Allison in his room, Boyd and Erica in the basement. They weren't listening. "But...?"

"It only works with mate-bonded pairs. Mate-bonded _alpha_ pairs," Derek stressed.

"Oh," Isaac said, and then realized what Derek was implying. "Oh. We... don't have any of those. What if we did?"

"If we did," Derek told him. "Then it still wouldn't work. The alpha's mate would have to be put in danger; I won't purposely endanger anyone in my pack."

"Especially not Stiles," Isaac agreed, allowing himself a smile and trying to look innocent as Derek bared his teeth. He knew Derek didn't mean it. He'd heard the way Derek's heart skipped a beat when Isaac said the human's name. "But you're right. We can't endanger anyone. Maybe Deaton will find something."

"I hope so," Derek had told him.

But it sounded as if Deaton hadn't found anything yet. Scott didn't sound hopeful that he would, either, and that made Isaac nervous. He tried his best to remind himself that the last time they had fought Gerard, they had also been fighting the kanima. They'd been fighting Chris and Allison, who were in an uneasy truce with the pack for now. Fighting just Gerard alone should be easier.

Pushing his worries aside, Isaac buried his nose in the nape of Scott's neck, curled his fingers a little more tightly into Allison's, and just breathed.

* * *

When the phone rang, the sheriff almost didn't recognize what it was. He pulled out his cell phone, the one work calls would be directed to, but the screen stayed black as the ringing continued. It had been far too long since anyone had used the land line. For a moment he was tempted to let it ring, let the answering machine pick it up, but it was early and the ringing might wake Stiles, who had gone to sleep much too late for it to be healthy.

Snatching it up, he pressed it to his ear. "Hello?"

"John?" Melissa McCall's voice was distant, and he remembered that she'd called the land line last time as well. He would have to give her his new cell number.

"Melissa, hey," he answered, taking a seat on the couch beside the phone's cradle even though it wasn't corded. "Is everything ok?"

"Scott didn't come home last night," she said in a rush. "I thought maybe he stayed over?"

The sheriff frowned. Stiles had come home alone last night, hadn't wanted to talk. "He's not here, and I don't think he came in with Stiles last night either. He didn't call?"

"He's not answering his phone," she said. He knew she would be biting her lip, worrying it raw. "I called his work, but I'd forgotten the clinic is closed on Sundays. I called Allison's father but no one answered there either. Is there... did Stiles say anything? You know, about..."

"About werewolf business?" he offered, trying his best to make it seem light. She sighed and he could practically hear her nodding as she 'mhmm'd him. "He's not exactly being a chatterbox about it," he told her. "But... Friday night Derek Hale showed up, carrying Stiles home because he'd eaten something that made him sick. He was... he looked like he'd been in a fight. Sort of. There's definitely something going on."

"And Stiles wouldn't tell you anything?" she pressed. "Scott hasn't said a word. Allison was over Friday night, but they were on the computer most of the night." She didn't have to tell him how unusual that was.

"Well... actually," he said slowly. "When he came home this afternoon, he told me not to worry, that someone was working on an solution for whatever had made him sick, so that no one else would get sick. It sounded like they were expecting someone would try. To make them sick, you know?"

"They can't!" she said, louder than she'd intended. The sheriff's breath caught on the distress in her voice. "I mean... I mean Scott told me that they - that he and the others heal very fast. That they can't get sick."

"The Hale kid got paralyzed by the- by Jackson," he corrected himself, trying his best to keep the human sides of their children in the conversation, the same as Melissa did. He scrubbed one hand along the side of his face, rested his forehead on his palm, elbow on the arm of the couch. "Derek told me that whatever is going on now is temporary, and Stiles seemed to be fine today before he left." Relatively speaking, he added silently. He couldn't get rid of the image of shadows on his son's skin, imprinted into his memory any time he closed his eyes.

Silence chewed the air between them until it became uncomfortable, and Melissa let out a burst of sigh. "John, how did this become life? I used to worry about grades and whether Scott was getting enough sleep and if anyone was pressuring him to use drugs. And now... now we're here, trying to figure out who is planning to poison a pack of werewolves."

That pulled a laugh from him. "I don't know, Mel. It's a little crazy, isn't it." Beside him, the end table rattled as the mobile phone on its edge began to ring. He glanced over. "Just a sec, I think Stiles left his phone down here. Someone's calling."

"Is it Scott?" she asked hopefully.

He picked up the smartphone, furrowed his brow at the name. "Might be. ID says 'Vet's Office.'" He swiped a finger across the display and held the phone to his other ear. "Hello?"

"Oh- Good evening," came the voice across the line. The sheriff recognized it as the veterinarian, Alan Deaton. He vaguely recalled Melissa telling him that Scott said he was involved with the werewolf business somehow, too. "Sheriff Stilinski?"

"Yup. I don't suppose Scott is there with you?" he asked, loudly enough that Melissa could hear him asking for her.

"Actually... he is," Deaton said to the sheriff's surprise. "He... he's on shift."

The sheriff pursed his lips, rolled his eyes even though no one was there to see it. "I know the office is closed on Sundays, Alan. You don't have to cover for him," he said firmly. "I know about the werewolves." Well, he supposed that was one way to let the cat out of the bag.

"I see." There was an awkward pause, before Deaton ventured cautiously: "Did Stiles tell you?"

"No, Scott's mother told me. Speaking of which-" he switched phones and pressed the house line closer to his ear. "Mel, can I call you back? I'll have Scott call you."

She thanked him and hung up, and he made sure that Deaton asked Scott to call his mother immediately. He could hear the far-away, tinny sound of Scott exclaiming about forgetting and Deaton softly lecturing him before Deaton returned to the phone. Before he could say anything, however, the sheriff asked his own question.

"So, would you mind telling me what is going on, Dr. Deaton?" He wasn't about to surrender the phone to his son without a little interrogation as to why the vet was calling _Stiles_ and not _the sheriff_ if something was going down. "I'd love to know why my son arrived home Friday night covered in bruises, being carried by Derek Hale."

The vet's deep breath filtered over the connection and the sheriff was suddenly sorry he had asked. He'd heard that sigh before from others and it never meant anything good was about to be expressed. "I'll tell you," Alan said quietly. "But you should speak to Stiles. He may need you more than he lets on."

Even though Deaton couldn't see, the sheriff nodded. "Okay," he agreed. "I think I can try. He hasn't been in the mood for talking."

"I don't blame him," Deaton said softly. "But I don't excuse him either. Where would you like me to start?"

"Let's start with what happened Friday," the sheriff suggested. It wasn't a nice-question tone of voice; he already knew he wasn't going to like the answer. He had a feeling Stiles was going to have a lot to answer for shortly.

* * *

 

Stiles lay with his face buried in his pillow, trying to ignore the creep of sunlight across his bedroom's floor. He had woken up almost two hours ago, showered, dressed, and then crawled back into bed. He was just _tired_ and he was _sore_. The shallower bruises on the flat planes of his skin, his ribs and his back, his thighs and his collarbone, were turning yellow already, healing, fading. The ones on his wrists and his hips, the deeper ones, the first ones Derek had left and the last ones he'd stopped touching, were still purple and red. His muscles still ached, still murmured reminders of what had happened with Derek.

Stiles shoved his face harder into the pillow and derailed that train of thought before it got too serious.

Instead, he tried to find reasons to get up and get moving with his day. He had stayed up late trawling the internet for any mention of wolfsbane being used to control werewolves, but had come up empty handed. When 3am had rolled around and knocked him unconscious, he had given up.

The rest of his day hadn't gone any easier. After Derek had bolted, he'd waited at the vet clinic for almost an hour until Scott could get out there. He'd shown Scott the text from Lydia, and Scott had joked that this should be no issue then! He wasn't an alpha, so maybe it wouldn't affect him!

But it had.

Scott had let Deaton dose him and then had sat at the procedure table in a trance, absorbed in every word Stiles or Deaton said. He followed every command; even contradictory commands. When Deaton told him to stand up, he would begin to stand and if Stiles told him not to, he would stop. Whatever they ordered him to do, he would do it without hesitation. It had been horrifying.

Deaton had given him various chemicals and herbs, but to no avail. One of them had made Scott violently ill immediately after he ingested it, and Stiles had to carry his shoes home to put into the washing machine. Scott had called him on his way home from the clinic to say they'd given up for the night because Scott was hungry and Deaton needed time to do some more research.

It was as Stiles was pulling his shoes from the dryer, still warm and smelling of detergent and dryer sheets, that the doorbell had rung. His father wasn't home just yet and so he had tossed his shoes on his bed, thundered down the stairs yelling " _Hang on, I'm coming!_ " and torn open the door with enthusiasm. Because someone ringing the doorbell meant it wasn't a werewolf coming in through the window or one of his friends barging in unannounced with supernatural news.

So the very last person he expected to see... was Jackson.

Standing there, in his slightly-too-stiff clothes, holding himself as if it had been a battle to arrive at all, much less face Stiles, Jackson had clenched his jaw and looked everywhere but Stiles' eyes. Stiles, for his part, stood there gaping at Jackson with wide eyes, trying to determine if Jackson was perhaps lost. Or maybe angry with him. He scraped around for any possible reason that Jackson might be on his doorstep, but in the end they were all wrong.

"I want to help."

Stiles had just stared for a moment, because how could Jackson even _know_ that they needed help? How could he have guessed, when he had been avoiding them for the past two months, when he was wrapped up in Lydia and sorting through his own problems? They'd had that discussion at lunch, sure, but... but... but Lydia was friends with Allison, and Stiles had sent her that text, and she had probably asked. Allison would have told her, because Jackson could be in trouble as well. And if she told Lydia, then Lydia would have told Jackson, and Jackson...

"Help?" he echoed, trying to sound confused. Maybe Jackson didn't even know any of it.

Jackson made an irritated noise in the back of his throat. "With Gerard, and the wolfsbane. Ringing a bell?"

"Why come to me?" Stiles had asked before he could think too much about it.

Jackson's lip curled in distaste. What a question. "Because I didn't want to go to Derek. Because if I went to Scott, he'd tell Allison and she'd tell Lydia."

"Lydia doesn't know you're here?"

"She... wouldn't understand. She wants to move past all of this," Jackson said slowly, quietly. Stiles could almost hear the way it hurt Jackson. "But I _can't_. Gerard, he..." his voice caught and he shook his head, looked away. He was struggling for words and Stiles just let him take his time. "He did things he shouldn't have. He hurt people that... I... He wanted me to do things... to hurt... Danny. Again. He wanted me to _kill Lydia_."

The moment the words were out of his mouth his eyes brightened dangerously and a deep growl rose in his throat. The sharp scent of blood filled the air as his claws dug into his palms, trying to calm himself. Stiles had taken a step back and it was the click of his throat as he swallowed that brought Jackson back from the edge, alerted him to how he was losing it, scaring a human.

It was the sound Lydia had made for the first few weeks after learning about how he had turned.

When he opened his eyes, they were his normal, soft blue. He shook his head, met Stiles' eyes. "I _have_ to do this, Stiles. I have to." _You have to understand._

Stiles had understood. Matt and Gerard had put all of them through so much, but especially Jackson. He had to live with the blood on his hands, had to live with the memories that were surfacing daily. Every person that had been murdered, every person that had been endangered, hurt, terrified because of Jackson. Because Jackson had lost control. To hear that Gerard might be capable of doing that to others... maybe of doing that again to Jackson...

"What makes you think you can do anything?" Stiles had asked softly. Jackson would be just as helpless as the rest of them if he got drugged.

"Lydia is immune," he replied instantly, as if he'd been waiting for the question.

"That doesn't help you," Stiles pointed out. "Shouldn't it be _Lydia_ here then?"

Jackson gave him a look that expressed how much of an idiot he thought the other teen was. "The wolfsbane, it affects a werewolf because of its mate, right?"

"Uh... well, that's what it says," Stiles said, hoping to god Jackson didn't ask why Derek couldn't fix the problem then.

"What if it can't affect the werewolf's mate?" Jackson asked, as if it were the most obvious thing.

Stiles' eyes lost focus as his mind latched on to the information, internalized it, began comparing it to all the rest of the information they had compiled. His brows furrowed, mouth opening just a little, tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip. "That... that's a very valid point," he said at last. "You- we'd have to test it with Deaton. Can you come to the clinic tomorrow? Around noon?"

"Yeah," Jackson had sighed, suddenly relaxing, and Stiles realized that he'd been waiting to be told no. He'd been waiting to be rejected. An awful feeling settled in Stiles' stomach as he wondered if that was why Jackson was avoiding them; not because he didn't want to be a part of the pack, but because he thought _they didn't want him_.

"Jackson-"

"Don't." Jackson shook his head, closing his eyes as a muscle in his jaw jumped. "Just don't, Stilinski." He paused, as if he wanted to say something else, maybe explain, but he just waved a hand to brush it away and turned back to the street. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Stiles had watched him walk back to his car, stood with the front door open as he drove slowly into the dark. The purr of the Porsche was audible long after he was out of sight, and Stiles had closed the door before it was gone entirely. For a moment he'd just stood in the entryway, trying to sort his feelings, trying to grasp the novel idea that Jackson would be willing to help them, that Jackson actually _did_ want to be a part of the pack in some way. That Jackson, on some level, cared about the hell he had put them all through as the kanima, and wanted revenge.

Stiles wasn't above a little revenge.

Groaning, Stiles threw an arm over his eyes and chased away his thoughts of Jackson and revenge, of wolfsbane and vet clinics and awkward conversations with his father he was going to have to have soon. He just wanted to sleep. He wanted to wake up tomorrow and go to school like a normal kid. He'd even take a test; even a surprise multiple choice test where he couldn't write his way into an A by confusing the teacher. He wanted to get in trouble for whispering too loud to Scott in chemistry, because that was normal, because that's what trouble _was_ before all of this.

When the soft knock came at his door, he didn't bother getting up, just called for his dad to enter. His father poked his head around the edge of the door, met his eyes, and held up his phone. Stiles stomach jumped. He knew that look. He was in trouble. His mind began racing over everyone that could be on the phone. Derek. Allison's father. Derek. Scott's mom. Derek. Jackson. It was probably Derek. Oh god please don't let it be Derek...

"Dr. Deaton is on the phone for you," his father informed him in a tone that said 'my, isn't it strange how you're going to be grounded for the rest of your teenage life?'

Stiles groaned and his father tossed his phone into his outstretched palm without moving from the doorway. "Hello?" he asked hesitantly.

"Stiles?" Deaton questioned. "I just... had an interesting conversation with your father."

"I heard," Stiles lamented. "Did you find anything? With Scott?"

"Not last night." Stiles could almost hear every moment of the frustrating night the vet had gone through after Stiles abandoned them. "But, after Scott left, I did some more research. I might have found something that will lessen the normal wolfsbane effects. It may give them enough strength back that they can combat the secondary mesmerizing effects. Allison is driving Scott over to test it, so-"

" _Allison?_ " Stiles exclaimed, scrambling halfway out of bed as the word burst out of him. "You can't let her stay there! You- She shouldn't even be near Scott if he's been dosed! What if-"

"Stiles!" Deaton reprimanded sharply, cutting into his stream of worries. "It's ok. They are not even here yet, and I won't give them anything until you're here. However, even if I did, it would not affect Scott the same way it did Derek, because Derek is an alpha. Scott's not."

"What?" Stiles asked, settling back down on the edge of his bed. His dad raised an eyebrow at him, unwilling to leave Stiles alone in case he tried to escape unnoticed. "Shouldn't it affect him _more_ then? Aren't alphas stronger?"

"They are," Deaton agreed. "I suspect that's part of why it affected Derek more intensely. As near as I can tell, the original herb was cultivated for use in alpha mating rituals, to bring them closer to their mates, cement a bond between them. It might not affect an omega at all, aside from weakening them like any wolfsbane will."

_Jackson_.

"I'm coming over," Stiles said, almost breathless.

"Wait, Stiles!" Deaton called as Stiles moved to end the call.

"Yeah?" Stiles asked, putting the phone back to his ear, eyes flicking up to meet his father's.

"Talk to your father before you come over," Deaton said softly. "I told him about the wolfsbane."

"You wha- Deaton!" Stiles exclaimed, but the vet had already ended the call. Stiles stared incredulously at his screen, blinking with the call minutes until it faded to the time.

In the doorway, his dad leaned against the frame and crossed his arms. Stiles knew that look. He knew his dad wanted to talk but was uncomfortable. He knew his dad had questions that he needed answers to, but didn't necessarily _want_ to know. But Deaton had already told him things, which made it impossible for Stiles to lie because he didn't know _which_ things. So he just stared back, lips tight, and waited to hear what his father was going to say.

"So Deaton..." his father began.

"Is in on it," Stiles answered.

His father rolled his eyes, a muscle in his jaw jumping. "Is everyone in on it but me?"

Stiles winced, fiddling with his phone. "Not _everyone_..." At the look his father returned, he made an exasperated noise. "What was I supposed to do, Dad? We almost told you a few times, but..." He shook his head. How to explain everything to his father, who really wasn't even ready for werewolves yet? I didn't want you to get hurt? I didn't think you'd understand? I thought we could handle it? They were all excuses.

His father sighed, let it go. "I know now," he said gently. "I don't want to be left out of your life, Stiles. Even if it's... crazy. Even if it involves werewolves and kanimas and wolfsbane trysts with-" he dropped the sentence like it had choked him. He wanted to handle all of this gracefully, but there was only so much that could be reasonably expected of him, right?

Blood flushed under Stiles' skin at the realization that Deaton really _had_ told his father everything. "Ok, now that- that wasn't supposed- that's not going to happen again," Stiles finished awkwardly. "It was accidental. Incidental. It was-"

Holding up one hand to stop him, his father closed his eyes and took a breath. "Just. Stop." He took a moment to appreciate the silence, turned his thoughts over until he found the question he wanted to ask. "Was it... _consensual_."

"Oh my god, Dad!" Stiles exclaimed, not ready for that sort of bold question. "I mean, not exactly-"

" _Not exactly?_ " his father echoed, voice rising.

"Look, it was a little blurry!" Stiles said quickly, realizing as soon as he said it that this didn't make it better. "I mean there were drugs-" definitely _still not better_ "He wasn't exactly himself! He didn't really want to, but I-"

" _He_ didn't want to?" his father repeated, eyebrows scaling up his face as he fixed Stiles with a look that said _I can't believe the words still coming out of your face right now_. "It _wasn't exactly_ consensual because _he_ didn't want to?"

Stiles squeezed his eyes shut and buried his face in both his hands. "Yes," he mumbled through his palms. Mortified didn't begin to encompass what he was feeling at the moment. "That seems about right."

"Geezus, Stiles," his dad rasped, finally unfolding his arms to run a hand through his hair. This really wasn't the conversation he'd meant to be having with his son tonight. "You know he's six years older than you?" _I could have him arrested_ remained unsaid, but Stiles could hear it anyway.

He looked up, gave his dad a half-twitch of his lips that said _really?_ "I know how old he is, Dad," he said, trying to keep the irritation out of his voice. Like he hadn't spent the last 24 hours considering every angle of what had happened. "It's not like- It's not like it's going to happen again." His stomach flopped sickeningly when he said it, but he managed to keep that off his face.

His dad searched for some sign that Stiles was lying to him, but for once, Stiles believed whole-heartedly what he said. He was telling the bare truth to his father, and the sheriff could see that it wasn't a happy thought for him. Guilt needled along his skin. He hated making Stiles feel worse than Stiles was already making himself feel.

"Were you... were you at least _safe_?" he asked tiredly, dropping the rest of the issues he might have had. Later, he promised himself. When this was less raw.

"Yeah," Stiles admitted, getting to his feet as he recognized the end of the interrogation. His father would let him pass now. "I have to go. Dr. Deaton needs help solving this wolfsbane thing before anyone else gets hurt."

When he reached the door his father stepped aside, into the hallway. The clump-clump of him descending the stairs echoed back to his father, who didn't move, who just leaned against the wall outside of Stiles' room and closed his eyes. He'd made a real mess of that, he thought, but it felt good on some level. Because Stiles had talked to him. Because Stiles hadn't shut him out like he'd been doing for the past 6 months.

Because Stiles had said 'before _anyone else_ got hurt.'

Because for once, Stiles was asking for help.


	7. Chapter 7

The front door chimed as Stiles entered, ignoring the large CLOSED sign hanging in the window. He lifted the latch on the gate to the back area when Deaton called, and let himself into where they were seated. Scott was hunched over one of the procedure tables and Deaton was writing in a notebook. When Stiles entered, Scott looked up and Stiles could see the way his pupils had consumed his irises; he was drugged. Stiles couldn't keep the grin off his face, despite the seriousness of their entire situation.

He marched over to Scott and held out one hand. "Paw," he ordered. Scott scowled even as he placed his hand in Stiles'. Grin widening, Stiles released him and said sharply: "Bark!"

Scott yelped in a particularly unflattering and unfortunately high pitched way and then made a swipe at Stiles when he began laughing. The back of his hand caught Stiles' arm and Stiles winced as he skipped back a step. Deaton rolled his eyes and ignored them both in favor of finishing what he'd been writing.

"You're such a jerk," Scott told Stiles, but his scowl was tainted with a smile.

Stiles just grinned again, eyebrows rising mischievously. "Yeah? How about this one? Belly up! Show me your tummy, puppy!"

Deaton made a half-hearted noise of protest in exasperation as Scott slipped off the stool with a groan and flopped down on the floor, baring his stomach to Stiles, who could barely breathe for how uproariously he was laughing. For a few more seconds Scott lay on the floor, glaring up at Stiles, and then he rolled to his feet and whacked Stiles upside the head for good measure.

"Owwww!" Stiles complained as Scott took a seat again. "That was not entirely necessary!"

"No, but it was fun!" Scott told him, and they stuck their tongues out at one another.

Across the room the door opened and Allison poked her head in from the dog kennel area, interrupting them before Stiles could cause any more trouble. She flashed a smile to Stiles, who paled and looked to Scott like something horrible was going to happen. "Allison!" he exclaimed.

"Stiles," she greeted.

"Should you be here?" Stiles asked urgently, taking strides to stand between her and Scott, who was... only watching him mildly. Stiles turned around to look at Scott, brows drawing together in confusion when he realized Scott was not moving toward Allison. He wasn't losing control and trying to jump her. Perhaps Deaton's guess had been correct after all?

"She's fine," Deaton told them absently, and finally set down his pen.

"But..." Stiles protested weakly. "So... the side effects?"

"Just as I said," Deaton explained, looking up to Stiles with a slightly apologetic expression. "It doesn't affect betas the same way as it does alphas. We have better control over Scott than we do Derek, but I have no way to tell if that is because of the differences between alphas and betas or because Derek is a born wolf and Scott was a bitten wolf."

"Does it really matter?" Stiles asked. "I mean, does it matter why?"

"It might," Allison said, moving around Stiles to sit by Scott's side. He leaned toward her, but Stiles could tell it was different. He would do that without the wolfsbane. "For instance, we don't know how it would affect Peter. He's a beta but he was born a werewolf. Would he act like Derek or like Scott? Can you imagine Peter being controlled by Gerard?"

Stiles frowned, not enjoying the mental image. "Ok, point taken. So you said you found something?"

"Ah, yes!" Deaton rose and disappeared into the front room, returning a moment later with a steaming mug. He moved around the room preparing it as he spoke. "I found a reference to an herb that treats some of the symptoms of wolfsbane in particular. I believe that a tea made from the leaves of _senna siamea_ may help our friends restore their strength."

"Made from what?" Scott asked, tipping his head.

" _Senna Siamea_ ," Deaton repeated. "The kassod tree. Specifically the leaves of a certain strain bred alongside some wolfsbane strains. It isn't often used, because it can cause serious liver damage, but Scott can heal that if the wolfsbane is purged. The biggest problem is that this should also have a tranquilizing effect he will have to fight off as well."

He placed the mug in front of Scott, who reached across the table to take it. Allison laid her hand over his shoulder blade as he lifted the mug to his lips and took a long draw from it. He made a face at the flavor, but swallowed anyway. "Yuck."

"Yes, well," Deaton said with a smile. "We can add some honey if it works. How do you feel?"

Scott stared into the mug for a moment before his brows drew together, slowly. "What?" he asked.

Deaton looked surprised, shared a glance with Stiles. "Scott? How do you feel?"

"Fuzzy," Scott responded almost immediately. When he looked up to Deaton his brown eyes were glassy and unfocused.

"Roll over," Stiles commanded, in a voice that said he already knew they'd lost, that Scott would obey. Sure enough, Scott laid on the floor and rolled over, but he didn't get up afterward. He just laid there, eyes half closed, looking sleepy. "Well, shit," Stiles said plainly. "That can't be good."

"No..." Deaton agreed, looking thoughtful. "That shouldn't have happened."

The knock on the front door made all of them jump, even Scott. Deaton raised both eyebrows at Stiles, as if he might know what was going on, and then clambered to his feet. Stiles glanced at the clock, and then grabbed Deaton's arm as he passed. "It's Jackson," he said quietly, even though Jackson could probably hear them through both doors between them.

Deaton raised his eyebrows, but didn't comment. A few moments later he returned, trailing an uncertain but sullen Jackson. Scott brightened at the sight and Allison smiled tightly; she guessed that Lydia wasn't aware that Jackson was here. She didn't want to be the one to have to tell her later, but she assumed that she would be. Jackson caught her eye, and she could see that he knew she would tell. He just nodded once, stiffly, and she accepted the permission with a nod.

"Jackson," Stiles greeted, stepped aside so that he could reach the procedure table where Scott sat. "Nice of you to join us."

Jackson scowled, but grabbed a stool on his way across the room and sat upon it at the edge of the procedure table, opposite where Scott was clambering to his feet and retaking his seat. "I'm not doing this for you," he snapped, but he looked guilty when he caught the look Deaton shot him. "So where's this wolfsbane stuff?"

Walking behind Jackson, Deaton lifted the small sprig of wolfsbane that Derek had surrendered the day before. He tipped it toward Jackson for viewing, and then set it down in a glass container at the edge of the table. "Don't touch it," Deaton said when Jackson reached for it.

Stiles, still glancing between the two, took a position at the head of the procedure table, opposite Deaton. "Lydia told Jackson what was going on," he explained to everyone. "Deaton, you said this morning that an omega might not be affected as strongly. Jackson hasn't accepted being a part of Derek's pack, which should make him an omega. Also, he thinks that he can't be affected because Lydia would be immune. If it can't affect his mate, it can't affect him. At least... that's the theory," he concluded.

"It's a good theory," Deaton said, looking thoughtfully at Jackson now. "Jackson... are you sure that you are ok with this? If your theory is incorrect, you would be susceptible to... being controlled. Briefly," he assured Jackson when the youth paled. "The effects seem only to last a few hours. Still, that is..."

"That would be _bad_ ," Scott observed, brows scrunched as he tried to focus.

"Thank you, Scott," Stiles said sarcastically. "That is very helpful."

"Look," Jackson growled, impatient. "Just give me a dose. I'll deal with it."

Everyone exchanged glances, and then Deaton plucked up one of the two mugs in front of Scott and placed it before Jackson. "Your choice, then," he said. "We'll watch over you."

Jackson's hands encompassed the mug and a small, grateful look slipped across his features accidentally as he looked at Deaton. It vanished almost as soon as it appeared, and then he was raising the mug to his lips, taking a tentative sip. Steeling himself, he took a longer draw, a large swallow, and then made a face. It was bitter.

"Tastes awful," Scott agreed, words slurring slightly. "Hey!" he exclaimed, and raised his hand in front of his face. "Hey. I feel better!"

They all turned to look as Scott hauled himself to his feet, hands gripping the sides of the procedure table, and proceeded to tip over and crash onto the floor. Allison half caught him on the way and ended up on the floor with him. Rolling his eyes, Jackson set down the wolfsbane tea and sighed.

"Sometimes I wonder how you two made it to this age in life," he snarked, then pursed his lips as Stiles gave him a look. "How long is this going to take?"

"You should begin to feel the effects in a moment," Deaton told him. "It was just a few minutes for Derek and Scott."

Jackson actually huffed a laugh at that. "Hale let you dose him?"

"He was trying to help the pack," Stiles said sharply. "We have to figure this out quickly, before Gerard gets back."

Expression sobering at the mention of Gerard, Jackson nodded. They settled in to wait, Scott still laying on the floor with his head in Allison's lap, seemingly content. Stiles tried to stand still a couple feet from Jackson, who just kept staring at him like this was really beneath him and he probably shouldn't have come here. Deaton went back to scratching at his pad of paper, counting off the minutes until the wolfsbane should start to have an effect.

"This is taking forever," Jackson finally stated grouchily.

Deaton looked up, set down his writing utensil. "You don't feel any different?"

"Not really," Jackson said. "What am I supposed to feel?"

"Light headed," Scott answered from the floor. "Your heart beats faster, and your mind kind of clears. But not in a good way. It's just hard to think."

Jackson shot him a look that said _I'm not sure how_ you'd _tell that_ and then sighed. "I do feel a little... off," he admitted. "What's next?"

Allison jumped on that opportunity. "Jackson, say something nice about Scott."

His nose wrinkled. "Why?"

Everyone stared at him. He looked between them, suddenly nervous that he had done something wrong, or that there was something wrong with him. Stiles recovered first. "Say something nice about Scott," he repeated, in a more commanding voice.

Amber tainted the edges of Jackson's irises for a split second as he resisted the urge to lash out at Stiles. "Fine," he snapped, but it was clearly under protest. "Um... Scott you... sometimes aren't an idiot."

The look Stiles shot him read _that's the best you could do_? "Jackson did you... feel like you _had_ to say something nice?" He paused, though not quite long enough for Jackson to get in a response. "I mean, were you compelled? Like when Matt or Gerard gave you an order? Possibly feeling compelled to obey our every whim?"

"No," Jackson answered, and shot Stiles a glare to rival Derek's bitchface. "You were all just giving me that look, like I was in trouble for not doing it."

"What Stiles is trying to say is that you appeared to resist the order," Deaton cut in. "Derek and Scott were both unable to do that."

"Oh," Jackson said as intelligently as he could, as if he had known it all along. "So then I was right? Great. So I can fight Gerard. That means we're done here."

He began to stand up from the stool to leave and it was only through Deaton's quick interference that he did not end up on the floor with Scott. The vet guided him back into his seat, and Jackson shook his head, repeating the word 'dizzy' over and over until his eyes slid closed. Deaton shared a worried look with Stiles, one hand on Jackson's back to continue to steady him. He reached over, plucked up the mug of kassod tea, and placed it in front of Jackson.

"That's the wolfsbane you're feeling," Deaton said softly. "Try some of this."

Stiles watched as Jackson took a sip of the tea, and then caught Deaton's gaze. "What's the other plant?" he asked.

"Hm?" Deaton responded, not sure what Stiles meant.

"The other plant. You said 'that's the wolfsbane you're feeling.' So what's the other plant?" he clarified. "What's the wolfsbane been hybridized to? There were... _other_ effects that were not a result of the wolfsbane, I would think."

"Oh, yes," Deaton said, sounding resigned. "Of course we would be able to find out more about it if we knew its name, but that is something the werewolves have kept very close to the chest. Everything I have found so far has been references by various hunters, who are only supposing at how it works and what it is for. It seems they never grew any of the pure plant themselves."

"And the werewolves destroyed the wild population," Allison reminded them from the floor. Scott smiled when he heard her voice, even though his eyes were now closed. "So they wouldn't have been able to find any just growing outside."

"There has to be _someone_ in the _entire world_ that knows more about this," Stiles said, exasperated, looking between Deaton and Allison.

Jackson snorted. "That's optimistic," he said laconically. He reached forward, obviously feeling better now. Before Deaton could stop him, snapped a few leaves off the stem of the dried wolfsbane and scooted toward the door. "I'm taking some of this back to Lydia."

Of course he wouldn't ask, Stiles thought, lips pursed. "Be careful," he said, instead of the reprimand he wanted to give. It wouldn't have done any good, not with Jackson. "Hey," he quipped before Jackson could disappear. "Take some of the other stuff. The kassod stuff."

Jackson tipped his head impatiently, because Stiles was making no sense. Deaton reached over and plucked a small vial from the table, selected an empty container from the counter behind him, and shook a little of the mixture into it. He capped it and passed it to Jackson, who took it much more gingerly than the wolfsbane. Stiles somehow managed not to laugh that Jackson was so backward; snatching the thing which could hurt him and treating the cure like it would bite.

When Jackson had thanked them awkwardly and disappeared out the front door, Stiles let out a breath and forced himself to relax. Deaton shook his head, and picked up the dropped thread of conversation. "Actually, Stiles, there may be someone who would know the name," he said, in such a low, serious tone that Stiles was immediately on guard.

"Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like what you're about to say?" he asked.

Deaton offered an apologetic smile. "You would have to talk to someone who has been a werewolf for a very long time," Deaton told him. "Someone who had been born a werewolf."

"Derek doesn't know," Scott offered loudly from the floor. And then he giggled, and Allison carded her hands through his hair and shushed him. "He said he doesn't," Scott mumbled defensively, but he let it drop.

Stiles knew that Deaton wasn't talking about Derek. If it was Derek, Deaton could have asked him while he was in the clinic. It would have been one of the first questions the vet asked when he had Derek under his thrall; probably _had_ been the first question, in fact. Which meant that Derek really didn't know. Which meant that Deaton wasn't talking about Derek at all.

And, Stiles concluded, there was only one other born werewolf the group could possibly ask.

"Peter," he said aloud, and Deaton just nodded.

* * *

It wasn't difficult to find Peter, but it was a trick to get him away from Derek, whom Stiles still didn't want to talk to yet. Allison had suggested using Scott's phone to send Derek a text asking him to meet him at the vet office. It was very effective, actually, as Derek was rather invested in finding a solution. With him removed from the house, Stiles had quickly left the clinic and took the long way around to the Hale house. He didn't want to see Derek on the road, to give him the opportunity to draw conclusions.

The betas, as he found when he arrived, were out to dinner. He let himself in the unlocked front door with a small smile. There was a part of him that still chuckled at the thought of whatever unfortunate soul would try to break into this home; there was no reason to leave the front door locked. The wolves would find their scent and track down trespassers that caused trouble.

"Peter?" he called softly, knowing that the werewolf would hear him no matter where he was in the house, if he were home. His car was gone, but the trio had passed him in it at a crossroads; thankfully they hadn't seen him sitting at the light.

In the dead silence, Stiles imagined he could hear the shift of feet on carpet, strained to listen more closely. Upstairs? His eyes tracked up the redone stairway. He felt stupid, shouldn't have come here alone. He should have honked at the betas and made them come back with him. He should have let Derek stay, even if he didn't want to talk to him.

"Stiles," came the greeting from the family room to his right. It was soft and expectant and Stiles knew that Peter would have heard his Jeep approach from a mile away.

He swallowed his nervousness and closed the door with a click, then moved into the family room. It was fairly dark, with the blackout drapes drawn, but he could see Peter sitting on the loveseat closest to the television, his legs tucked up under him, a book in his lap. For a split second Stiles envied werewolves their ability to read in the dark, but he pushed it aside because this was _Peter_ and Peter was _dangerous_. Peter was _crazy_ and not paying full attention to him could get Stiles killed.

"Do you sit around in the dark often?" he asked as he trailed to a stop a couple yards from the man. He didn't think there was a 'safe' distance when it came to Peter, but there was a distance that didn't close Stiles' throat, didn't cause his stomach to tense with fear.

"Only when I'm waiting for red riding hood to arrive," Peter told him, flashed a smile Stiles could only see because his sharp teeth were so white. Stiles regretted ever wearing his red hoodie around the pack. "You smell like a hospital."

Stiles winced because he knew the sort of memories that Peter associated with hospitals. "I was talking to Deaton," he replied.

"The _vet_ ," Peter observed, although the way he stressed the word suggested exactly how much he thought of that particular cover story. "I'm sure he has some very _interesting_ theories involving your current little problem."

"It's going to be your problem too," Stiles pointed out levelly.

A sly smile curved Peter's lips. "Oh, I could only be so _lucky_ ," he practically purred. Stiles blushed, even though he had no idea what Peter actually meant. "So he sent you to find out more?"

"No," Stiles said carefully. He hadn't been _sent_ anywhere. "I came of my own accord. There's something I want to know."

Peter folded closed the book in his lap, tapped the base of the lamp on the cabinet beside the loveseat. Shifting nervously from foot to foot, Stiles watched as he laid the book down and then turned his full attention to Stiles. "Something you want to know?" he repeated. "From me? Now that _is_ interesting."

Stiles scowled, because he didn't like how Peter made the phrase a proposition. "I need to know everything you know about the wolfsbane Gerard is searching for," Stiles said, charging ahead rather than addressing Peter's attitude. "I need to know the name of the plant it was hybridized to."

One rough handed unfolded from his lap, and then Peter was patting the couch beside him, just once. "Have a seat," he said politely, but Stiles caught the glint in his eyes, the way a grin twitched at the corners of his mouth, just the tiniest bit mad.

But he didn't have a choice, not if he wanted the information, so he crossed the room one step at a time until he was at the opposite edge of the loveseat. He raised his chin, just a little, to show he wasn't afraid, but he knew that Peter could hear his heart pattering like he'd run a marathon. As gracefully as he was able, he seated himself on the arm of the couch and fixed Peter with a look.

For his part, Peter smiled as if he had expected this. "So ornery," he said smoothly. "So resistant. I should have bitten you. It would have been fun to tame you."

Stiles didn't do well keeping the distaste off of his face. "The plant," he insisted.

Sighing in resignation, Peter leaned into the fluffy back of the seat. "Yes, yes, the plant. It does have some curious effects, doesn't it?" he asked, looking sidelong at Stiles. "The whole house reeked of it when I got home Saturday morning. All mixed up with the scent of my nephew... and of you."

Stiles blanched. Maybe this was a bad decision. Maybe he should leave. "That's fascinating," he managed. "What is its name?"

Peter's brows rose in surprise. "You're determined tonight," he observed. The boy wasn't going to rise to any of his bait and he found he was slightly annoyed at that.

"It's _important_ ," Stiles stressed, hoping that, just for a few minutes, Peter would take this seriously and actually help them solve this. That maybe he could just make Peter _hear_ how important it was in the notes of his voice.

"You read the field guide entry?" Peter asked, and halted Stiles' protest with an impatient look. Stiles nodded. "Did my nephew happen to tell you anything about the effects of the herb?"

"No," Stiles said, then before Peter could continue: "But Scott and Allison said it was used in werewolf mating rituals. It's supposed to, like, call an alpha to its mate." He blushed, a detail that Peter did not miss. "The guide said it would render them helpless."

"And did it?" Peter asked idly. His expression didn't change at all as he waited for Stiles' answer.

"Mostly," Stiles said reluctantly. "Derek followed orders."

A grin flickered onto Peter's lips. "I'll bet he did."

Stiles scowled. "So did _Scott_ ," he said firmly. "At Deaton's, both of them."

"Of course," Peter agreed, in the sort of way that wasn't really agreeing at all.

Stiles made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. This was going nowhere and Peter was enjoying yanking his chain. He shouldn't have come, shouldn't have trusted Peter to tell him anything he thought as he got to his feet. "Forget it," he said as he edged away from the couch. He refused to turn his back.

Peter was on his feet in the next instant and Stiles froze, dropped his gaze so that he wouldn't been seen as a challenge. He'd read somewhere that this was a good idea for when facing a wolf, and he only hoped it held true for werewolves as well. It seemed to give Peter pause, anyway, which gave him some small measure of satisfaction.

"I don't know the name of the herb," Peter said after another moment's hesitation. "But I can give you the number of someone who would."

Swallowing thickly, Stiles nodded. "Ok," he agreed and he was proud of how steady his voice was despite that his hands were shaking. Peter was so, so capable of killing him, and they were so, so alone.

Peter moved past him, brushed shoulders in the softest way as he headed for the kitchen. Stiles remained where he was, only turning to keep his front to Peter, risked raising his gaze to watch the werewolf disappear. Rustling filtered back as Peter sifted through a tupperware on the counter in which junk was being collected. A moment later he reappeared, pen in hand.

It was instinct to jerk his arm away when Peter grabbed his wrist, but Stiles resisted the urge, let his muscles go limp. Peter met his eyes for a split second, teeth flashing in a smile. Stiles' breath caught, just the slightest bit, as Peter turned his wrist over, smoothed one hand over the skin before setting the pen to it. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the ink that bled onto the inside of his wrist as Peter wrote the phone number.

"No paper," Peter explained when he was done, voice like silk. "You should hurry home, little red."

Stiles tugged, just the tiniest bit, and Peter loosened his hold, let Stiles slip his hand free. "Thank you," Stiles said, catching Peter's eye now that the werewolf wasn't angry, wasn't expecting a challenge.

He made it to the door before Peter called out his name, giving him pause. "Nothing comes for free. Try to remember that."

Stiles slammed the door behind him.


	8. Chapter 8

When he finally got home, Stiles immediately darted upstairs, past his father who was watching TV, and entered the phone number into Google. It pulled up several pages, the first of which belonged to a plant nursery in England. He clicked around the site, but there was not very much information. If he had to make a guess, they had a store front for the real world and a back way into a nursery full of fairy tales and nightmares. The number Peter had given him was located on a page which exclaimed "Don't see what you're _hunting_ for? Give us a call!"

Stiles scowled at the not very subtle reference.

He went through the process of calling another country using the phone card he had picked up before coming home - he was sharp enough to recognize that the number had more than the American 10 digits - and listened to the other side ring. And ring. And ring. When a metallic recorded voice asked him to leave a message, he only did because it might just be the only way to contact this particular line. It was late for them, though, and probably closed because it was Sunday.

A rough sound scratched Stiles' throat. Only Sunday. Less than 48 hours since he'd taken the wolfsbane. It seemed like a week.

He was in the middle of scribbling a note to himself to call back later when the soft knock on his door came. The door didn't immediately open, which meant his father was willing to respect his privacy if he chose not to answer. Stiles didn't really want to have another Talk, but he also didn't want to push away his father again. There had been enough distance put between them for the past few months.

"Come in," he called, setting the note on his keyboard so that he would see it later.

The door clicked, cracked open enough for his father to poke his head through. He tossed a glance around the room, as if checking for other occupants or some sign that he was interrupting, and then met Stiles' eyes. "Is everything ok?" he asked, opening the door wider. "You didn't say anything when you got home."

Stiles winced. He _had_ just rushed in, right past his dad. "Sorry, Dad." He hoped his guilt was evident in his tone. "I just had a phone call to make."

"Ah," said his father, though he probably didn't understand. "Anyone important?"

For a moment, a flippant lie sat on the tip of Stiles' tongue as he stared at his father. An excuse, a diversion from the truth, the same as he'd been doing since Scott was bitten, the sort that had been digging the rift between them wider every time, and he was tired of it. There was so much else going on, so much else he had to deal with in his crazy, werewolf-filled life, that lying to his father this time was just too much.

So instead of lying, Stiles just sighed and slumped against the back of his computer chair. "Actually, yeah," Stiles admitted. He was mildly surprised by how good it felt, by how much he had missed seriously talking with his father about something that mattered. "I was trying to get hold of someone at the nursery we think Gerard was heading for, over in England. I thought if I could find out the name of the original plant the wolfsbane was hybridized to, we might be able to find a counter agent. Or something, anything, that might help."

His father blinked owlishly, taken aback by how much information his son was suddenly spilling. "Oh," he said after a moment. "I take it no one answered? Seeing as it is..." he looked at his watch. "Eleven o'clock at night there?"

"Yeah," Stiles said. "I'll set an alarm and call back when they're open."

The sheriff's brows drew together. "This is really important, isn't it?" he asked. Stiles had used the urgent tone, the tone that meant someone was in danger, that someone might be dying, the tone that he'd used when helping solve the murders that had turned out to be a result of all of his crazy werewolf business.

"Yeah," Stiles agreed, dropping his gaze. "You know how all those people died because of the kanima? Because Matt and Gerard had control of Jackson?"

His father nodded. That was one of the few things Stiles _had_ explained in detail, to stress to him why he could not make any of this public knowledge.

"Yeah, well, Gerard is trying to get control of the Pack now. All of them," he emphasized. "He took control of Jackson so that he could overpower Derek, because Derek is the alpha wolf and only an alpha's bite can turn you. He wanted Derek to bite him."

He swallowed, throat closing as he remembered everything that had happened that night. Erica and Boyd strung up like animals. The beating he'd endured. The rejection by Lydia, watching her give everything to Jackson after they had all watched him die. After Derek had buried his claws in Jackson's chest, taken on the role of monster to save them. The horror of knowing Gerard escaped, that he was still on the loose.

"He's not a werewolf," his dad said quietly. "Right? Derek didn't bite him."

Stiles shook his head. "He did, Scott made him, because Scott had dosed Gerard with mountain ash without telling anyone. It's like poison to them, I guess. He thought it would kill Gerard, but it just... it just burned the infection out of him. When you get bit, you either turn wolf or you die, but it just... it just burned out of him. So now he's trying to get control again, so he can become a werewolf."

His dad took a deep breath, moved farther into the room, took a seat on Stiles' bed. He leaned back against the headboard as Stiles swiveled the chair to face him. "I thought he was one of the uh..." He waved his hand as if he could pluck the word from the air. "The hunters. Werewolf killers."

"Yeah," Stiles told him. "Yeah, he is. He was. But he's..." Stiles trailed off. _He's dying of cancer_. It was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't say it, couldn't speak through the way the past crushed at his chest.

All he could think of was his mother in her hospital bed, the cancer eating away at her with nothing they could do to stop it.

There were no werewolves to save her.

"He's _sick_ , and he thinks becoming a werewolf will save him," he managed at last. An expression flickered over his father's face that told him he'd guessed what plagued Gerard. Stiles swallowed his regret and continued. "I don't think he'll stop at just getting bit," he said. "I think he'll hurt more people. I think it will be like when Laura Hale died, and Peter became the alpha, and all those people got hurt. Gerard will turn people, but they won't be nice people like Scott. They'll be killers too."

"That's why- why you ate the wolfsbane," his father guessed, drawing on what Deaton had told him. "Because you want to stop him."

"I _have_ to stop him," Stiles said firmly, leaving no room for question. "They're my friends, Dad."

"Your pack," his dad suggested, glad to be able to connect some of the dots.

A smile twitched the corner of Stiles' lips. "Yeah," he agreed. "Yeah, they're my pack. And I've got to protect them, if I can."

The sheriff nodded, taking all of it in, carefully filing the information in case he needed it later. Stiles let him, because he knew the process, because he had learned the process from his father. He could practically see his father spreading all the information on a mental table, sorting it into categories, marking which bits he thought were most important, putting together pieces that fit with what he already knew. Finally he took a breath, and looked up to meet his son's gaze.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "About this morning. About... Derek," he clarified. "He's part of your pack, right? You're protecting him too."

Stiles nodded, chest tight. "Yeah."

His father studied him for a moment, and then added: "And you care about him. As more than a friend."

"Yeah- well, no- Look, I don't _know_ ," Stiles admitted, fear climbing up his throat at the thought of talking to Derek again. "Maybe I'd just- I'd really like for both of us to be alive to figure it out, you know? Like if maybe everything could stop trying to kill us for five seconds so we could at least talk." He chuckled, but it was weak and ended with an almost desperate sigh. He swallowed and took a deep breath. "I don't even know how I let it get like this. All of it. I should have told you, I just-"

"Stiles," his father said, halting him. "It's ok. I wish you had told me and let me help, too. Let's start with this time, shall we? Is there anything I can do?"

That caught Stiles up short. He had always wondered what it would be like to have his father know about all of this, about the werewolves and the danger and the hunters and the insanity. Now here he was, sitting in his room, talking about wolfsbane and falling in love with werewolves and his dad was asking to help, and he had no idea where to begin. "Uh," he said intelligently.

"Gerard's human right?" his father prompted. "You said he was traveling to England? By plane, right?"

"Yeah, yeah," Stiles agreed, spinning around in his chair to face his computer. He shoved aside the note and began pulling up the e-mail Allison had sent his way the night before. "He bought a one way ticket to London, out of the airport outside of town."

"Ok. So maybe I can put a watch out for him coming back," his father suggested. "That will give you guys a heads up. Is there anything I can have him detained for?"

Stiles pursed his lips, tried to think. Was there anything Gerard had done that could get him arrested, without revealing anything about the pack? "Probably not," he admitted. "He'll stay as under the radar as he can. The laws he'll break... you'd have to give away the pack to arrest him for them."

For a split second, he saw the war going on inside of his father. He knew why, and it was one of the reasons he hadn't been able to talk to him before. His father was the sheriff, upholder of all human laws, and ignoring the law just because the perpetrators were involved in supernatural things went against everything he stood for. It hurt him, to know that his son was involved, that he was probably breaking laws even if there was a _need_ to in order to _survive_.

Then his face cleared, and his father nodded. There were two ways for him to handle the situation, and he wasn't going to arrest Stiles for doing what was right. He couldn't. He didn't have to be involved directly to know that the things Stiles had been doing, the laws he had broken since January, had saved lives. If he couldn't be free of the red tape of the law himself, he could at least make sure that his son was able to protect those in need. He rolled off the edge of the bed and got to his feet.

"Ok, then," he said, and Stiles hopped to his feet as well. "I'll do what I can, Stiles," he told his son. He wasn't surprised at all when Stiles dove in for a hug, buried his face in his dad's shoulder and clung on as if he wasn't going to let go. He wrapped his arms around Stiles, squeezed back tightly before letting go and heading for the exit. "We'll protect your pack, kiddo. Together," he said when he reached the door.

And then he smiled, the same sort of shit-eating grin Stiles was so famous for amongst his friends. "We'll protect your future _boyfriend_ too," he teased gently. "So you can _figure it out_."

Despite Stiles' furious blush, he nodded. "Thanks, Dad."

His dad smiled again and closed the door behind him.

Stiles groaned, wiped a hand down his face and then snatched his phone off the desk top. Without very much grace he threw himself face down on his bed, burying his nose in his pillow until it became hard to breathe, just letting his mind be blank and quiet for a few minutes. Slowly, slowly, he let the gates open, let his thoughts back in as he rolled onto his back, tucked one arm behind the pillow behind his head, and held up his phone so he could see the face of it.

He let himself touch upon the events of the last two days, tried to grasp at what his world had been when he'd set his tray down on the cafeteria table before Allison had dropped this wolfsbane bomb in their laps. It hadn't been simple then either, he decided after a time. There were still werewolves, and Gerard had still been on the loose. There were still hunters and they'd still dealt with crazy Peter and Matt and the kanima. There was always the threat of more danger on the horizon, especially with the alpha pack that was lurking around the edges of their awareness.

He just hadn't expected to deal with _Derek_ on top of the rest of it.

Derek had been the issue he'd put on the back burner. He'd been that small fire in Stiles' gut, the lingering desire he'd set aside because there were more important things at hand. There was Scott, who was trying to handle the semi-breakup with Allison and who came to Stiles to sort it out every time. There was his father, trying to cope with what he called 'werewolf business' but meant all of Stiles' life. There were days his father didn't handle it very well, days he broke down and asked why Stiles continued keeping his paws in the thick of things; days he didn't understand that Stiles couldn't just _quit_.

There was Lydia, and almost seven years of emotions Stiles wasn't completely ready to forsake, even if she had never shared a single one of them.

Yet here he was. Lying in bed, mind consumed with worry about how he was going to handle his tenuous situation with Derek. He knew he had to do something about it because they had been avoiding one another to the best of their ability since Friday night. They wouldn't be able to do that forever, especially now that Gerard was endangering their pack. At some point they would _have_ to work together and this couldn't be hanging over their heads if they were going to do that.

So, for the good of the pack, he reasoned, he tapped open his contacts, selected Derek's number, and began to type.

_Can we talk? Like, before Gerard gets back to mess up everything?_

He let the phone fall, cradled in his hand as he dropped his arm to his side. He didn't figure there would be a response. He'd sent dozens of texts to Derek since obtaining the werewolf's number but Derek had only ever sent one back: _I don't like typing._ That was the one text he'd ever sent back to Stiles. Usually he called back or showed up if he needed to respond.

Most of the time Stiles laughed because he could just imagine Derek trying to tap the little letters on his smart phone's display and hitting all the wrong ones and then getting really frustrated- enough that he just called instead. Now he was dreading the phone call that might come because talking out loud was so much harder than writing a text where he could have time to consider whether or not he should stick his foot in his mouth.

So when his phone buzzed, he was surprised that it was with a text instead of a call. He set aside his disappointment when the text was from Allison, but he opened it anyway.

_Dad's contact at the airport says Gerard purchased a return ticket. Dad thinks he found the plant._

Stiles cursed, and began to reply when a second text buzzed through.

_Family friend says Gerard contacted him... he's looking for company when he gets back. Lots of company._

Stiles closed his eyes, because he had predicted something like this would happen. He knew that Gerard wasn't seeking a happy-fun-times welcoming committee. He was looking for help. He was looking for an attack force, and Stiles didn't have to guess who they would be hunting.


	9. Chapter 9

The din of the lunchroom was a faded hum at the back of Stiles' mind as he systematically mashed overcooked carrots with the back of his fork, pushing them around his tray because it was probably healthier than eating them. Scott sat across from him as per usual, and Stiles really did try to listen to him at first, but it was hard to focus when he already could recite everything Scott was going to say. It wasn't that he was tired of hearing about Allison, even though he _was_ tired of hearing about Allison, but just... there was so much else going on that was complaint worthy. Stiles had hoped Scott could stumble upon even one of them to discuss.

This was not, however, the case, and so he began to sculpt the carrots into a very bad likeness of a wolf.

"Hey," Scott said when he noticed. "Are you even listening?"

"Yes," Stiles responded automatically, because his ears were trained to pick up on that question. He looked up because Scott was just staring at him, waiting. Stiles' head rolled with his eyes. "You spent the entire weekend with Allison and she didn't want to talk about anything related to you," Stiles said.

"That's not what I said!" Scott protested.

Stiles mashed in the ugly face of the carrot wolf. "What did you say, then?" he asked, looking up and settling his blankest, most sarcastically patient look upon Scott.

Scott shifted uncomfortably and then pulled a face. "Ok well it's not _exactly_ what I said," he justified, and then sighed when Stiles gave him a pointed 'told you so' look. "Anyway what's with you today? You've been totally spaced out all day. Not even Harris got a rise out of you."

Sighing, Stiles set down his utensil. "I just... I had a long night. I went and talked to Peter, and I called the nursery that Gerard might've gone to, but no one answered. I called back again this morning, no answer. My dad... found out about Derek, what happened on Friday anyway..." he shook his head. "I'll figure it out, don't worry."

Sympathy flickered across Scott's features briefly, but he knew how much Stiles hated sympathy and so he tried to shove it out of sight. "You know you don't have to figure it _all_ out, Stiles. And you don't have to figure it out alone either. You've got me!"

Stiles flicked mashed carrot at his best friend, though he knew it would be caught, and shrugged with a small smile. "I know."

Before either of them could start an actual conversation about Stiles and his issues, Allison set her plate down beside Stiles' and Lydia set hers beside Scott. Jackson trailed in after Lydia and Danny slid in on the other side of Allison rather than sit by Stiles. Isaac was the last to join them, sitting quietly on the other side of Stiles.

Sometimes Stiles wondered if this newfound and oddly assorted clique was to blame for how he never got to have deep conversations with Scott anymore. Someone always showed up to invade their alone time. Sometimes everyone showed up together, like a flock of insistent conversation ruiners.

Stiles looked around the group, the past sitting heavily upon his shoulders. Aside from Isaac, this was how it had been before. When Scott was newly turned, when everyone else was human and most of the group had no idea what werewolves were, much less had direct interaction with more than one of them. Before Peter had bitten Lydia at the dance as his back up plan and started the steep downward spiral that had cost all of them. Stiles' eyes traced over Lydia, the way her hand fell softly upon Jackson's, and he felt a very familiar ache.

It was hard letting go. It was best, especially now, but it was hard.

He'd absolved himself of having to like it.

Isaac politely elbowed him, and he dropped his gaze to his plate just as Lydia looked up. She stared at him, her eyes flickering to Isaac for half a second; Isaac flashed her a completely innocent smile and she frowned. Stiles tried not to think about how sharp she was, how intelligent, how often he just wished he could have someone that smart to bounce ideas off of, to share his life with. He pushed carrots around his tray, forcing himself not to look at her.

He wondered if he could stand being just friends.

Maybe someday. Today was not that day.

"Stiles," Allison said sharply, drawing his attention. When he looked up, Lydia was still watching him. Actually, everyone was watching him. He wasn't sure what he was being reprimanded for this time.

"Uh," he said, looking between his friends.

"How was your weekend?" she asked in a tone that said she was repeating the question. Stiles gave her a confused look, and then remembered that Danny was with their group. Somehow no one had told Danny and they had all silently agreed that they shouldn't. No one wanted to be the first to break it to him that he was completely surrounded by things which were not what they seemed. Like maybe just _one_ of the group should be allowed to have semi-normal freaking life.

The problem was, his _entire_ weekend had been taken up with werewolf business and Stiles' ability to create a story had abandoned him.

Thankfully, Isaac seemed to catch on, because he mouthed 'you owe me' to Scott. He hated lying to Danny more than any of them, but it was necessary if the group was to get anything done about Gerard. So he wrapped long fingers around his tray, got to his feet, and slid it from the table. Everyone watched as he stepped down the group until he was standing behind Danny, who tipped his head back to look up at him. Isaac smiled, the charming sort of smile that was completely irresistible. Stiles thought if Isaac smiled at him like that, he might get up and follow as well, so he wasn't surprised when Danny just silently got up and moved to a new table to sit alone with Isaac.

The group seemed to relax as soon as Danny was out of hearing range. Stiles tried not to laugh about how short human hearing range was. Instead, he quickly sketched out what he had told to Scott about Peter and the nursery, and Scott reported no progress with Deaton on the wolfsbane front. Jackson, however, had good news.

"If I drink that tea Deaton gave me, I can resist the effects," he told them grouchily.

Lydia rolled her eyes. "It's only for a few minutes," she told them, outing him.

"It won't be enough," Allison said quietly. "My dad's contact said that Gerard was looking for others. He's no joke on his own, Jackson, but if he's got help..."

Scott shuddered, closed his eyes miserably in an attempt to shut out the past. "He's strong," he said. "I saw him cut an omega in half with a sword. Do you know how strong someone has to be to do that in one cut?"

A shiver passed through the group as they looked at one another, because they _did_ know. Allison was the first to shake off the unease, spread one hand on the table to draw attention. "Look, it doesn't matter how strong he is if the group gets disabled," she pointed out. "So we have to find a way to get everyone on their feet again, right? So let's focus on that first."

The group fell to discussing the matter, throwing out ideas they all knew wouldn't work, just in case. Leave no stone unturned, as the saying went. Stiles let his mind wander a little as he watched the group, tried fitting together various puzzle pieces in order to find a solution. Something was _missing_. He knew something was missing, he just didn't know what or where to even begin looking for it.

The clang of the school bell made him jump when it came, and everyone began to clear out. Stiles hurried to pick up his tray, still mostly full of food, and wiggle off the bench. A couple more hours and he could be home, have his computer at his fingertips, continue his search. He would try the nursery again, just in case, because there could never be too many messages left when the matter was this important.

He had just tossed the remainder of his lunch into one of the trash barrels when he felt the faint touch of fingertips on his shoulder-blade. Turning, he found himself facing Lydia. Alone. Looking over her shoulder he could see Jackson watching them and he knew the werewolf's ears would be alert, able to hear this conversation long after Jackson was out of view. Having made sure Stiles knew he was watching, Jackson turned back to his conversation with Danny and the pair disappeared out the lunchroom doors.

Stiles' gaze fell back to Lydia. She had her arms wrapped around two textbooks and was giving him the look that said he was in trouble for something. He couldn't imagine what he was in trouble for; Jackson had come to _him_ , not the other way around.

"I don't like it," she said without preamble. Stiles' eyebrows rose, and she sighed, looking away from him. "I don't like that Jackson is getting... _involved_." Somehow the word sounded completely disgraceful when she said it.

"Yeah, well, I didn't exactly _involve_ him," Stiles told her.

She made an exasperated noise, looked him in the eye and folded her arms around the books. Stiles, as sharp as he was, did not miss the flicker of apprehension. He did not miss the slight stutter of her breath that indicated fear. "He's just not... he's not handling all of this very well," she said, the picture of calm. "He's just starting to accept that what happened when he was... the _kanima_ wasn't his fault. Seeing Gerard again, especially under these circumstances, is the _last_ thing Jackson needs right now."

"What do you want _me_ to do, Lydia?" Stiles said helplessly. He really didn't want to be having this conversation. "Tell him no? Jackson's not exactly in the business of listening to me."

She pursed her lips, because she didn't like his tone of voice. "He won't listen to me," she said finally. "I can't stop him from helping you. I can't keep him from getting hurt."

Stiles glanced over her shoulder, absently thinking that passing time was quickly coming to an end and Mr. Harris was going to roast him when he arrived late. "He's already hurt," he said gently, looking back. "Gerard hurt him, wanted him to hurt you. He couldn't fight back, then." Stiles shrugged, just one shoulder. "It's... closure." He bit out the last word like it had a bad taste. He'd had a lot of closure once and it hadn't helped.

"I know," Lydia admitted. Stiles immediately felt bad. "It's just... it's hard seeing him like this," she admitted. "Like he can't trust himself anymore. Like if he relaxes for a second, someone like Matt or Gerard will control him again. Now this? Now they _can_? He's not ready for that, Stiles. _Stiles_ ," she stressed, because he was looking absently over her shoulder at the exit again.

Reeling in his attention, he met her eyes. "Not ready for it, right," he agreed. Not that he didn't want to be talking to Lydia again, because it had been a long couple months of her not even looking at him, but he really didn't want to be talking to her about _Jackson_. That wound was still pretty raw.

She sighed and then took a deep breath. It was unusual for him to be this distracted when talking to her. She needed him to focus right now. "What is it?"

"Hm?" Stiles hummed innocently, brows rising. "Oh, nothing."

"Well, you're obviously not paying attention right now. So what are you thinking?" she asked. She knew exactly how smart Stiles was and what the chances were that if his attention was not on her, it was on something very, very important. That something was unlikely to be Jackson.

"Me? No thinking here," Stiles claimed. "This is a think-free zone, absolutely no-" he cut himself off at her glare. "Ok, maybe a little thinking, but it's not about this. I mean it's about this, but not... this. Look, I don't really want to talk about it, ok?"

"No, it's not ok," Lydia said firmly. "Not if it's going to put Jackson in danger for you to be distracted."

"It's not-"

She shifted, fixed him with a look that caused his protest to die on his lips. It was clear she was not going to budge until he'd spilled.

He rolled his eyes, exasperated. "Ok, you remember that text I sent you? With the Latin translation?"

Her nose wrinkled. "About Alpha mating rituals?" she asked.

Blood colored Stiles' cheeks faintly. "Yeah," he said. "And how many alphas do we know?"

"Derek," she guessed. "Unless you mean the pack of them Jackson mentioned."

Stiles drew up short for a moment. He'd very nearly forgotten there was a pack of alpha werewolves lurking on the outskirts of Beacon Hills. He shook it off, gesturing with his hands for her to forget them. "No, just Derek. Well the wolfsbane has other effects than just the suggestibility you're worried about. It... it causes... it makes alphas..." He grasped trying to find a non-mortifying explanation.

"It's used in mating rituals," Lydia said matter-of-factly.

"Right," Stiles agreed. "If a human takes it, it puts them - and the human - into a state of, uh... arousal."

Understanding quickly dawned in Lydia's eyes and a noise of exasperation burst from her. _This_ is what he was wasting her time with? "Really, Stiles? You tried it, didn't you."

"I might have..." he said guiltily. "Look, no one was around, and it said it would enhance senses. That's good, right? But then Derek showed up."

She actually laughed, though it was clipped and somewhat derisive. "So you two had some mating rituals of your own?" she guessed. "I don't even want to know what you were thinking. So he's mad at you? That's your problem?"

Stiles winced. "I don't know that mad is exactly the term I'd use..." he hedged. At her look, he surrendered. "Ok, yeah, I think he's pretty mad at me right now."

"You think?" she asked. "Or you know?"

"I'm pretty sure," he said with as much conviction as he could manage. "Look, this wolfsbane... it's the same sort Kate - Allison's aunt? - drugged him with the night of the Hale fire. She's the one that set that fire, she killed his family, she did horrible things to him. And now I-" he cut himself off, gaze dropping.

Lydia's face fell momentarily, but she brushed off her sympathy. She'd seen Stiles be stronger than this. "You're not Kate, Stiles," she told him. "Did he _tell you_ he's angry?"

Stiles huffed a laugh. "If you haven't noticed, Derek's not exactly the 'telling people' sort of guy."

She rolled her eyes at him, and then shifted her books to jab him in the chest with one finger. "You need to get this worked out. I need you to be at the top of your game for whatever is going on with Gerard. If that means you have to go work out issues with your moody werewolf boyfriend, then that's what you're going to do. Got it?"

It was by great force of will that Stiles did not rub his chest. "Yeah, I got it," he said grudgingly. "I'll talk to him."

She stepped aside so that he could get past her. Stiles stared at her for a few seconds, then took a deep, steadying breath. She nodded, because they were both going to have to be strong soon. They both had people to protect, people that needed them. He slipped around her just as the bell rang to announce how tardy he was going to be to chemistry.

As he reached the doors to the now-empty cafeteria, she called his name. She called his _real_ name, and he pulled up short, wheeled around with wide eyes. No one had used his real name since his mother had died. Lydia raised her chin resolutely. Whatever she had to say to him, she _meant_ it.

"You know what it's like... watching someone you love die," she told him. His face darkened. "I can't watch him die. Not again." It was less of a statement, more of a plea. "If you can't do something, if you can't protect him, I will."

Just once his eyes traced over her and then, without any sort of acknowledgement, he left.

* * *

There was a part of him that felt bad leaving school after walking away from Lydia, but he just hadn't wanted to deal with Mr. Harris chewing him out in front of the class. Again. He didn't want to sit through the last couple hours of school, dreading what he knew was going to be an awkward conversation. If he put it off he would think up a way to chicken out of it, to convince himself that if Derek wanted to talk about Friday night, he would.

So he just left.

He had walked straight to his Jeep instead of class, and zipped away from the little security car that prowled the parking lot. He'd meant to go straight to the Den, but he'd passed the turn off onto that dirt road three times now and it wasn't getting any easier to think about. What if Derek wasn't home? What if he just told Stiles to leave? What if-

Forcing himself to calm down, Stiles turned away from the road for a fourth time.

Because what if... what if he _didn't_.

What if he didn't tell Stiles to leave? What if he did want to talk? What was Stiles even going to _say_ about what happened?

So he was driving, long hands wrapped so tightly around the wheel that his knuckles were white, his shoulders tensing into knots. He had been confused about Derek since the day he and Scott had been discovered in the woods. He'd remembered Derek and he'd been confused as to why Derek was _back_. Why he was standing _there_ , keeping tabs on _them_. He especially didn't understand why he couldn't shake the feeling of the guy, the small kindling of flame at the back of his mind that was thinking about Derek constantly.

He'd blamed fear, because Derek was _scary._ He was damaged and unpredictable and utterly gorgeous when he was irritated with them. With Stiles. The intensity in his eyes when he glared, the way he mantled just slightly when he got close to Stiles... what was he supposed to do with that? How was he even expected to handle the way he felt compelled to protect Derek, to save his life no matter what?

It _was_ 'no matter what.' At some point it had become 'no matter what' without him noticing. At some point he had gone from being terrified of the dark, angry wolf to wanting to save the damaged, lonely man- even if it meant sacrifice. Even if it meant a lifetime of nightmares or driving his precious Jeep through a wall. Even if it meant drowning at his side trying to keep his head above water.

Stiles groaned and pulled over into the nearest parking lot, a small corner drug store, and rested his head on the backs of his hands. He took a few deep breaths, trying to organize himself.

"Just go do it," he told himself, and he tried to pretend it wasn't pathetic to give himself a pep talk in a deserted parking lot. "Just go talk to him. What the worst that could happen? He could just tell you to go home. That would be it."

He sighed. That wasn't the worst thing that could happen, but he let himself believe it as he sat up straight. For a long time he just sat there, staring blankly at the neon open sign of the little drug store. Finally he flicked off the engine.

"Ok, Stiles. You're going to talk to Derek," he ordered himself. "But first... one quick stop. Just in case."

His door clicked open and he headed for the store.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um... I just wanted to say thanks for putting up with all of this so far. And like... apologize in advance for the next chapter. Ok, apologize in advance for the rest of the story. Can I just promise it will be ok and ask for your trust??


	10. Chapter 10

Stiles lay on his back, eyes closed, arms spread out over the rumpled covers. Silence pressed down upon him insistently, asking to be broken, but there was no one there to talk to and he'd had quite enough of talking to himself for one day. He could have gone downstairs, but he knew what was down there. So he just took a deep breath and let his thoughts wander back to his arrival.

When Stiles had reached the Hale house, Derek's camaro was missing from the lawn. For a while he'd just sat in his Jeep, hands on the wheel, staring very fixedly at where the car should be, willing it to appear as he tried to gather the tangled strands of his thoughts. Somewhere there was courage, but it was hard to find amongst all of the doubts, all of the fears that this was actually the exact opposite of what he should be doing.

After all, Derek had never responded to his text asking to talk. He didn't expect a text back, but there had been no phone call. No note. No form of communication at all, not even a 'no.' Derek just shut him out.

In the end, that was how Stiles managed to get out of the vehicle and let himself in the front door. Because he didn't want to just let Derek shut him out, toss him aside. He didn't want to let Derek believe he was like Kate, that what had happened was only a result of the wolfsbane poisoning.

It wasn't, and that was the scariest part for Stiles.

The wolfsbane hadn't given him new feelings- he'd wanted Derek for months now. Of course he'd never had the nerve to actually say something, because he really liked not having his throat ripped out.

So he let himself in and he rubbed his hands on the front door so that Derek would know that he was here. It was a silent offering, a notification that Stiles had come to the house but he was willing to give Derek some warning. Willing to let him take his time in coming to find Stiles. Then he shut the door and headed for the stairs.

"Back so soon?" came a soft voice from the kitchen, freezing Stiles in his tracks.

"Hello, Peter," Stiles answered cautiously. He remained where he was, but Peter didn't seem interested in coming to him. "Do you know when Derek will be home?"

Still out of sight, Peter made a throaty noise that might have been laughter. "Eager for another dose?" he asked. Stiles scowled, but didn't respond. He could almost _see_ the way Peter would shrug. "He should be home soon."

One foot on the first step to the upstairs, Stiles hesitated again, because Peter was in the kitchen. He told himself he wasn't curious, but he was very bad at lying to himself. What on earth does a deranged werewolf make for lunch? He wanted to continue up the stairs, but that insatiable part of him that craved knowledge was howling, and so he turned around, crossed the room, and poked his head into the kitchen.

Peter looked up from the table, raised both eyebrows when he saw Stiles looking at his turkey sandwich. "Hello again," he said.

"Hunh," Stiles replied, and then dragged his gaze away from the perfectly normal looking lunch. There were even potato chips, normal looking potato chips. It was hard to wrap his mind around.

"Were you expecting raw rabbit?" Peter asked benignly. He was in a good mood today, something Stiles was very, very thankful for.

"No," Stiles said honestly, even though he kind of had. He tried not to think about little werewolf ovens. "I guess not."

Peter shrugged and selected a folded chip from the plate and turned back to his laptop, which was open beside his plate. It looked like he was reading something. Stiles wondered just how much reading the man did in his spare time. He'd never given it thought before, but it made a certain amount of sense. Peter liked knowing things. He liked knowing things other people didn't. He especially liked knowing things that Stiles didn't, and that reminded Stiles that he should probably go.

Even as he turned, however, a thought occurred to him. A question that perhaps, now that he was in a good mood, Peter might be able to answer. So he turned back around and leaned against the wooden door frame. "Peter?" he asked, and he waited until the werewolf's gaze drifted over to him. "Can I ask you a question?"

"I didn't get much of a chance to say no, now did I?" he said with a small smirk. When Stiles gave him a look that said _what are you, six?_ he relented. "Please, carry on."

Stiles shifted uncomfortably, shoving back at the memory of Lydia mentioning what he was about ask, how she had reminded him of something that was very, very important. "Gerard... he knows about the alpha pack," Stiles stated a little uncertainly. He had to assume that at some point Gerard would have figured out there was a band of alpha werewolves in town. "What if... I mean, what are the chances that he'll go for them instead? What if he doesn't even take our pack into account, and just goes straight for a group source of power?"

A smile curled the corners of Peter's lips. "Now that _would_ be interesting, wouldn't it?" he replied. "I think the problem would be solved."

"Yeah, we'd be _dead_ ," Stiles told him, stressing the hell out of the last word. "He'd control a pack of _alphas_ and he'd get all his buddies bitten and kill them for their power like he was going to do to Derek."

At that, Peter actually laughed. "So you didn't get hold of the nursery, did you," he observed.

"No." Stiles tilted his head, just slightly. "How did you know?"

"Because if you had, they'd have told you that the wolfsbane won't work on _those_ alphas."

Stiles' eyebrows rose in question. "Because they're stronger...?" he guessed. It seemed silly. Wolfsbane was wolfsbane, right?

Peter sighed, tipped his head as he rolled his eyes. The gesture was reminiscent of Derek and Stiles briefly wondered if that was where Derek had learned it. He wondered if it was hereditary. "I really expected more from you, Stiles," he admonished, but his good mood was shining through because he continued anyway. "The herb the wolfsbane was hybridized to is, in fact, not used in mating rituals amongst alphas. They can bond amongst themselves without outside help. So...?"

Stiles had thought about this, drawing together the information he had, how the wolfsbane had affected him, how it had affected Derek, what the field guide said about the effects. It heightened senses... like a werewolf. It raised body temperature... like a werewolf. It caused werewolves to become suggestible... to humans. Had made him nearly irresistible to Derek. His eyes widened as he began to fit pieces together. "It's for bonding to _humans_."

As soon as the declaration was out of his mouth, Peter had smirked. "See? Was it really that hard?" he asked.

"But... how does that even work?" Sometimes he really believed his sense of curiosity was damning.

Peter smiled, the feral sort of smile that said Stiles was probably going to regret asking him. "I'm told it changes human body chemistry which, while having some _intense_ side effects, also causes the imbiber to more closely resemble a werewolf. It can trick an alpha's body into thinking it is in the presence of another alpha, or at least... a suitable mate." He spun the last three words out like silk, soft and smooth, and didn't look at all ashamed of the smile that accompanied them.

Stiles, on the other hand, couldn't keep the blush from his cheeks, couldn't stop his heartbeat from picking up because that meant... that meant that...

"Of course," Peter had continued, turning back to his laptop. Stiles could see now; the nursery's page was open, a chat window lurking in the bottom corner. "It only works if the alpha already feels... _attraction_. See? Says so right here," he said, tapping his screen. " _Aconitum vinculum._ Similar effects to origin species, _Aconitum variegatum,_ on all werewolves. Unintended debilitating effects on those attracted to humans due to hybridization to _Senna vinculum_." He tilted his head curiously. "I wonder if that's why Kate went through the trouble of courting him first..."

One hundred and ten percent done having this conversation with _Peter_ of all people, Stiles had just sort of... walked away. He knew how to handle moody, distressingly crazy Peter, how to handle crazed alpha Peter and pervasive, plotting Peter. Good-mood Peter was just a little too much.

Now he was here, sitting cross-legged on Derek's bed, the door to the room cracked open just enough that he heard when the front door opened, the clomp of Derek's shoes and the way he didn't use the fucking stairs like a normal person. It irritated him sometimes. Those were good stairs, and Derek always took them at least four at a time. Like in a lot of other areas in his life, he needed to slow down and take them one step at a time.

Stiles promised himself he wasn't projecting.

He was just so _nervous_ and then Derek was opening the door like he expected it to be barricaded, and he was just standing there, filling up the door frame and Stiles couldn't think of a single thing to say to him. Not one. His entire life was made up of coming up with clever things to say, but the confused, softly injured look on Derek's face just took the air from his lungs, squashed whatever line he might have quipped.

"What are you doing here?" Derek asked, and it was gruff but not mean so he wasn't angry.

"You didn't answer my text," Stiles responded as if prepared. If he had recited various answers to that inevitable question a few dozen times on the way to the house, well, no one had to know. "Last night."

"Did it occur to you that I didn't answer because I _didn't want to talk_?" Derek asked him. Stiles found he was glad for the biting sarcasm, he was used to the biting sarcasm. It was familiar.

Stiles pursed his lips and then said: "Well, we kind of have to, okay? I don't like this just sitting between us. I don't... like you avoiding me."

"I'm not _avoiding_ you, Stiles," Derek said. It was almost sharp, but it was the forced sort of tone that said he didn't mean it. "We agreed to forget it, and I'm _trying_ , all right? It's just... not easy. I can't be around you right now, I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" Stiles echoed incredulously.

"You need to go," Derek said. "Just go home."

"There's nothing to be sorry _for_ ," Stiles continued, ignoring the clear order.

Derek scowled. "I took advantage of you," he said, stumbling over the words like he'd said them a thousand times in his head and didn't expect to hear them rolling from his tongue. He looked a little confused. "I'm supposed to be protecting you."

"You did protect me," Stiles said softly. "And you didn't _take advantage_ of me. You couldn't have. I knew what I was doing... it was exactly what I'd wanted to do."

Brow furrowing to join in on the scowl, Derek regarded Stiles with the sort of distrustful expression that suggested he'd misheard. "What?"

Stiles rolled his eyes. "Ugh, you can be really thick sometimes, you know that?" The look Derek fixed upon him was on the polar opposite side of friendly, but he plunged forward anyway. "I like you, okay? I shouldn't, because you can be kind of a dick sometimes. And you screw up a lot. And you've got a lot of... issues," he said, waving one hand to encompass all of Derek's problems. "And-"

"Stiles." Derek was still scowling, but there was something else in his eyes. Something wounded. Like maybe he thought Stiles was joking- or maybe thought he wasn't. "That was a great confession. Now get out of my room."

"No." Stiles swallowed thickly, leaning back just the slightest amount as Derek took a step forward, closed the door behind him with an ominous click. "Unless you're going to make me." He really hoped Derek wasn't about to make him, because if he really wanted to, he could. It would probably hurt like hell in more than one way.

"Is that what you want?" Derek asked, moving closer as Stiles moved back, crossing the room as he spoke. "Do you want me to chase you off, make you leave?" He stopped, knees against the edge of the bed, pale eyes locked with Stiles'. He could smell the apprehension rolling off of him in waves. "I should."

"You should," Stiles agreed, voice quavering the tiniest amount. "But I-I don't want to leave," he said as firmly as he was able. The wall was cold behind him as he pressed against it; he was trapped on Derek's bed with nowhere to run.

A muscle in Derek's jaw twitched, and he dropped the gaze, let his eyes fall just the slightest bit, just until they reached Stiles' lips. Until they fell upon the thump-thump-thump of Stiles' heart in his throat as it beat faster. "You said you wanted to forget," Derek said thinly. "This isn't forgetting. I'm pretty sure this is the opposite of forgetting."

Stiles held up one long finger and Derek's attention refocused upon it. Stiles' mouth went dry. "First of all, I asked if we even _could_ forget," he pointed out, voice scratchy. "Second-"

"This isn't funny, Stiles," he said sharply. His hands were pressing divots into the edge of the bed as he leaned forward. "You shouldn't-" He caught himself, jaw clamping shut.

Chest tight, Stiles leaned forward, just enough to touch his knuckles to Derek's where his fists clenched in the sheet. Derek's eyes met his. "I'm not joking," Stiles said softly. "I don't want to forget. Ever, ok? The wolfsbane didn't... _make me_ do anything I didn't already want to do. So there."

"Stiles..." Derek said uncertainly, because there was _no way_ Stiles was saying what it sounded very, very much like Stiles was saying.

With a rough huff of exasperation, Stiles lunged forward and pressed his lips to Derek's. They were every bit as warm as the first time, warmer perhaps because Stiles was not fevered with wolfsbane. The whimper of a noise that clawed its way from Derek's throat was chased immediately by a nasal growl and a hand on Stiles' chest. He stopped, pulled back until they were just a hair's breadth apart, until Stiles could feel the desperate draw of Derek's breath on his lips as he pulled himself together.

"Don't tell me you want to forget," Stiles murmured, nose brushing just the tiniest amount against Derek's. "I can hear your heartbeat from here."

Derek let his forehead rest against Stiles' and closed his eyes. Stiles raised his hands to Derek's jaw then, brushing his thumbs over the stubble on his cheeks, letting his fingers slide home behind Derek's ears, along the nape of his neck, just holding him there.

"I can't do this again," Derek said softly, reaching one hand up to encircle Stiles' wrist.

"Ok," Stiles said, but it was difficult to keep the crush of his heart out of his tone. He had known, driving over, walking up the steps, climbing into Derek's bed that this might be the answer. He had promised himself that he would accept it, even if he didn't like it. Even if he hated it.

When his hands began to slip from Derek's neck, however, the werewolf's grip tightened, keeping them there instead. Startled, Stiles held very, very still, waited until Derek drew back enough that he could see his eyes. It was clear he was struggling to find the words he wanted.

"It's ok," Stiles soothed, even though he wanted to be angry. He couldn't _blame_ Derek. He slipped his hand from Derek's now slack grip. "I get it."

"No," Derek said firmly, finding his voice. He moved forward, knees on the bed, crawling up so that Stiles had to scuttle backward. "No, you don't _get it_ ," he said as he moved, backing Stiles up against the wall so that there was no way he could leave, caging him with his knees on either side of Stiles'. "I try not to trust you, because the last human I _trusted_ like I want to trust you took _everything_. But I can't stop. I _don't_ want to _hurt you_ , Stiles, but you're young, and you're brash. Persistent. You show up where you don't belong. You say things you shouldn't be saying. You _do things_ you don't understand, and it's _killing me_. Because I _don't_ want you to stop. I _don't_ want to forget." He swallowed, dropped his gaze from Stiles' wide eyes, his own shuttering closed. "And that is so, so dangerous for both of us."

For a moment nothing happened, and then Stiles was laughing, and Derek's attention snapped back up to him. There was a part of Stiles that said he should put on his serious face again, but he couldn't, because Derek was just so _serious_ already.

"Oh my god," he said on a laugh. "You are seriously telling me that in a world where my best friend has tried to kill me more than once after being turned into a werewolf after being bitten by a psychotic alpha werewolf - who is still around by the way, and still psychotic - where we have fought total body paralyzing lizard shapeshifters being mind controlled by gone-off-the-deep-end stalkers and maniac werewolf hunters, where we are all still being stalked by a _pack of_ _alpha werewolves..._ that getting involved with _you_ is the _dangerous_ part of my life? Or yours?"

Derek tipped his head just slightly and Stiles had to bite back any confused dog jokes he might have made. Sometimes he wondered if sarcasm were his inner werewolf.

"Sorry," Stiles said, with a little more solemnity this time. "But you're wrong. I'm not a danger to you, Derek. I'm not Kate. If you're worried about hurting me, you can stop," he added. "I can take care of myself. Ok, I don't know _exactly_ what I am getting myself into, but I have a pretty good idea."

Slowly he reached up, pulled down the collar of his shirt with two fingers. Still stark against his skin were the marks Derek had left three days ago. Stiles tipped his head as he showed them, baring the long expanse of his throat to Derek, watching as a shudder ran through him at the sight.

"I'm sorry," Derek breathed, eyes riveted to the marks, body tense as he remembered the evening.

"I'm not," Stiles told him. Caught his gaze when he looked up. "So do I get to stay?"

Derek nodded and leaned in slowly, brushing his lips against Stiles like he might wake up from the dream if he wasn't careful. Stiles pulled him forward, delighting in the knowledge that Derek let him. He knew that Derek could have stopped him, pulled back, and he was strong enough that there was nothing Stiles could have done. But he didn't. He pressed closer, shifted so that he could bring one hand up, run his palm along Stiles' jaw, down to rest on his neck.

A small noise escaped Stiles and Derek's breath caught. "I hurt you," he said quietly. "Before."

"I didn't break," Stiles said, nudging Derek's nose with his. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine," Derek said firmly and when Stiles opened his mouth to protest, Derek dropped his hand to Stiles' hip and pressed his thumb against a bruise. The way Stiles flinched, his jaw clenched, his eyes shuttered for a half second, spoke volumes. "You're not."

Stiles just smiled patiently, and put his hands on Derek's shoulders, shoving lightly. Derek let him, giving until he was where Stiles wanted him, laid on his back, watching as Stiles slid over, straddled his hips. A stuttered groan rumbled his throat as Stiles gave one roll of his hips, like an experiment.

"You're worried," Stiles declared, fascinated, looking him in the eyes. Derek didn't deny it, and Stiles' smile _changed_. Became the sort of feral a wolf could be proud of. "Then you'll just. Have. To be. _Gentle_ ," he said slowly, letting each word slip gracefully from his tongue as he leaned slowly down. He punctuated the last word with a kiss.

For a moment Derek felt paralyzed because he didn't know gentle. He had never had _gentle_ , never been on either end of the word in bed. He'd shied away from people, from getting too close, letting himself care enough to be _gentle_. So it was unfamiliar, the word Stiles laid before him, but in that same moment he found himself thinking that if _gentle_ was anything like the way Stiles said the word, it was something that Derek wanted. It was something he wanted very, very badly.

He was slow at first, hesitant, nothing like when the wolfsbane had them both wrapped up in its thrall. His fingers skimmed over Stiles' skin like he wasn't quite sure this was even happening, like it might be taken from him. When Stiles hummed his approval, Derek's fingers burrowed under his shirt, slid it up over his hands until Stiles was forced to stop kissing him to wriggle out of it. His noise of protest was muffled by Stiles' lips as he descended again immediately, hands rucking up Derek's shirt as far as he could without letting Derek rise.

When they broke, breathless, Derek managed to get out a quick, "Sit up."

Stiles reared up as soon as the order dropped from Derek's lips and Derek surged up to kiss him again before crossing his arms and pulling off his own shirt. Stiles' eyes lit up like Christmas morning and Derek huffed a laugh and let Stiles push him back onto the bed, hands rubbing eagerly over the expanse of his chest like Derek might make him stop.

Derek had no intention of letting him stop, just rested his hands on Stiles' minutely rocking hips and let him touch. Let himself have this. Tried not to remember what happened the last time he'd trusted like this. Tried not to remember what Kate had done with that trust.

When Stiles' hands stopped, Derek realized he had closed his eyes, muscles tightening bit by bit. His eyes opened, met Stiles' gaze. The human tilted his head just a little, considering Derek, and then ran his hands up Derek's stomach, over his ribs, across his shoulders until he was arched above Derek, hands braced against the headboard. Almost of their own volition, Derek's hands slid up, braced at Stiles' ribs.

"What's wrong?" he asked, voice thick.

Stiles huffed, smile full of concern. "You tell me," he said. "You weren't here anymore. You closed your eyes and left."

For a moment Derek hesitated, bit the inside of his lip. It was stupid, surely it was stupid, to compare Kate to Stiles. But she had broken him, scarred him, left him with enough doubts to fill the Grand Canyon. Stiles deserved to know that, but Derek didn't know how to even begin to tell him. It was too big for words, too complicated.

So he just said "Kate," and waited for Stiles to leave.

Head hanging just a little lower, Stiles nodded slowly, thoughtfully, and maybe he didn't understand everything, but he understood enough. He understood that tone of voice. He took a long, deep breath, and then met Derek's eyes. "She hurt you," he said quietly.

"She _broke_ me," Derek said, voice cracking to a whisper at the end when his throat closed. This wasn't how this was supposed to go.

But then Stiles was shaking his head, leaning down, capturing his lips with his and dropping down off the headboard. He was holding Derek's shoulders, breaking the kiss to lean his forehead down upon Derek's. "You're not broken," he assured Derek. As close as they were, he still caught the look Derek gave him, read _how do you **know**_ written in every line of his expression, as clear as a full moon night.

With a completely indulgent hum, Stiles moved so that his lips were near Derek's ear. "Maybe you were," he murmured, and then kissed his cheek. The edge of his jaw. "But broken people do not come home to fight to protect the ones they love." He continued, moving down to the heartbeat in his neck, the hollow of his throat. Derek's eyes slid closed; he was barely breathing. "They do not defeat alpha werewolves and kanimas." Kissed his shoulder, his collarbone. "They do not forge new packs, new families." Derek's breath caught as Stiles laid a pattern of kisses at his sternum. "And they do not," Stiles said, moving back up, putting one hand on either side of Derek's head. "Fall for mouthy guys that do stupid things like get involved with werewolves."

Derek opened his eyes. "Who would ever do that," he said, feeling a lot less like his chest was being crushed as the past receded once more. Having Stiles there, so close, so _present_ made the past seem so far away, like Derek had come so far without even realizing it.

"They'd have to be crazy," Stiles agreed, and then he kissed him.

This time, this _kiss_ was different. This time Derek let go, like he had three days ago, except that this time the skin beneath his fingers didn't reek of wolfsbane. It smelled of Stiles, of the school he attended, of the leather of his Jeep's seats, the spice of his deodorant. This time it was the two of them, it was really Stiles and maybe, Derek thought, he didn't have to be afraid this was the end of something he'd never even had.

This time, maybe it was the beginning instead.

He groaned at the thought, and Stiles shivered, broke the kiss and slithered backward so that he could fumble with Derek's jeans. Derek obediently lifted his hips when Stiles made a noise, enjoyed the slide of the fabric as Stiles divested him of his pants and then ran his hands back up the length of Derek's legs, halting at the edge of his briefs. Stiles smiled.

"Black?" he said, amused.

Derek pulled a face, but he could feel the blood flush under his skin. "They match," he said simply.

Stiles gave a conceding shrug and flipped the button on his own jeans much more adeptly than he had Derek's. A small splash of red appeared as Stiles unzipped, and Derek snorted to hide his laugh. Stiles just grinned, unabashed. "What? Can't always wear a red hoodie around the big bad wolves- it's not subtle."

"You're ridiculous," Derek told him seriously, because he'd wanted to tell him that so many times before.

Stiles raised an eyebrow, wiggled out of his pants by squirming around beside Derek until the werewolf had had enough. Stiles quickly found himself pinned by the wrists, Derek straddling his bare hips. He kicked his jeans off from around his ankle, let his thigh push Derek forward, lifted his hips into the motion so that their cocks rubbed through the fabric of their briefs. Derek let out a guttural noise, rocked his hips again, and then again because of the deep, needy noise it drew from Stiles' chest.

Derek shuddered to a halt when he felt Stiles' fingertips burrow under the elastic of his briefs. Stiles lifted his hips in encouragement and Derek had to take a moment to catch his breath, his hands wrapped around Stiles' wrists. Stiles let him, just sat stock still and let him breathe, let him hesitate until Derek's hands slid down along his arms, until Derek shifted so that Stiles could tug off the last piece of clothing separating them.

The moment Derek was free, Stiles wrapped hands around him, eliciting a deep, approving hum from the werewolf. He stroked up along the underside of him once and then Derek pulled away, laid his hands on Stiles' hips, caught his eyes. Stiles could see the question there, the request for permission.

Stiles smiled, lifted his hips in answer, arching off the bed.

Derek swallowed, mouth suddenly dry, but he wasted no time, stripping Stiles of his last bit of clothing. Then he froze. His gaze tumbled in jerks along the bruises that still patterned Stiles' skin, the fingerprints along his hips, the fading yellow marks along his ribs. When his eyes flicked back to meet Stiles', he found the human just watching him thoughtfully.

"They'll fade," Stiles said quietly, adding half a smile for good measure.

"Do they hurt?" Derek asked. He needed this answer, needed an answer to the question he couldn't ask, too. He was so good at damaging the things he loved; was that why they got taken from him? Were they removed from his world before he could damage them?

"I don't mind," Stiles told him with a small shake of his head. He plucked at Derek's hand, moved it so that it rested over the worst, a dark purple thumbprint. "They're good marks, Derek. Like sore muscles after a lacrosse game where you get the winning goal. Worth it," he said. "You're worth a few marks, I think."

Derek leaned down, kissed Stiles so that he wouldn't see the way the werewolf's veins blackened as he ran his hands over Stiles' skin. When he pulled back Stiles whined, but he silenced him with a look, laid his fingertips to the marks on Stiles' shoulders. Gently, methodically, Derek began to draw the patterns, touching each mark as if he could wipe it from his skin. The moment Stiles made to touch him back, he grabbed Stiles' wrist, halting him, and then very deliberately pinned Stiles' hand to the bed.

_Stay_ didn't have to be said. Stiles could read it in every movement Derek made.

It wasn't long before Stiles was squirming, making small, needy noises at the back of his throat. There was so much _touching_ but it wasn't the sort he wanted. Derek was doing his best to ignore the sounds Stiles made, to continue his silent apology, but Stiles was making it nearly impossible. He was all but grabbing Derek's hands, dragging him down again.

"Derek," Stiles finally gasped, exasperated. Derek stuttered to a halt, because _that tone_ saying _his name_ was just too much. "Remember me saying you had a lot of issues?" he asked, voice shaky. "You're going to have another one if you don't let go of your guilt and touch me for real, ok?"

For a split second Derek's eyes closed, cock jumping at the way Stiles said _touch me_. "Ok," he agreed. Then he opened his eyes, met Stiles' gaze. "You're sure...?"

Stiles rolled his eyes but the gesture turned into a suspiciously mischievous grin. "Check the left pocket of my jeans," he said simply. He was really glad he'd made that stop.

Giving Stiles a strange look, Derek leaned back and snatched up Stiles' jeans from the floor. After a little bit of shuffling, his fingers found the pocket and he extracted... a very travel sized bottle of lube. His skin flushed immediately as he looked back to Stiles, who raised his eyebrows innocently.

Derek pointed at him with the bottle. "A little hopeful, are we?"

Stiles didn't bother dignifying that with words. Instead, he closed his eyes, hand slipping down to stroke along his length once, slowly, hips lifting into the gesture, a groan rumbling up his throat. Derek very nearly crushed the bottle. Stiles cracked one eye open over his enormous grin. "Well?"

The sound Derek made as he prowled up the length of Stiles' body was almost a growl and Stiles gave half a second's thought to whether he should be worried that it only turned him on more. His life choices confused him sometimes. Then Derek was kissing him, hands roaming, and there wasn't a lot of room inside Stiles' head for anything but which way to shift and arch to get even closer.

When Derek paused, it was with his lips, his teeth, set at the pulse in Stiles' neck, back bowed as he reached between them, the click of the bottle cap drowned out by the panting of their breaths. Stiles' fingers tightened, curling into Derek's hair as the cool liquid touched his skin, chased by the warmth of Derek's hand.

He lifted his hips to accommodate, eyes closing as Derek's finger pressed slowly inside. He let his wrist rest upon Derek's shoulder, shifted to better accommodate, didn't bother to control the trembling hum that bubbled up even though he knew they weren't alone in the house. All he wanted was for Derek to keep going, keep pressing, keep touching him in all of the right places.

Despite Stiles' encouragement to the contrary, Derek was in no rush. He was slow, thorough, _gentle_. Stiles had asked for it, Derek reasoned as he curled his fingers, felt Stiles' body jump, his breath catch.

"Do that again," Stiles ordered, practically choked. "Please, Derek."

That damn please, back to burrowing its way past all of Derek's defenses, ruining his plans, making his blood sing in his veins. Almost of their own accord his fingers obliged the way Stiles begged and this time Stiles moaned through clenched jaw. Derek almost didn't mean to do it a third and a fourth time, until Stiles was writhing with it, calling his name over and over.

He forced himself to stop, to let Stiles calm down, to ignore the way Stiles swore at him for doing so, because Stiles was on the verge of laughter as he said it. Instead he listened to the thrum of Stiles' heart, let his palms run over Stiles' skin as he breathed deep. Then he leaned forward, drew his tongue along Stiles' throat until his lips were at Stiles' ear.

"Still ok?" he murmured.

It was Stiles' turn to growl, a noise which sent shocks tingling across Derek's skin, left desire coiling in his gut so that he didn't want to take it slow. "Fuck, Derek," Stiles managed, hips bucking up to brush his. "No I am not ok. I'm better than ok." He dragged nails up Derek's back and Derek arched into it, pressing back with a shudder. "Stop _teasing_ ," he begged, a whisper against skin.

Derek's throat clicked as he swallowed, his hands running down the length of Stiles' sides, lifting his hips. The veins on his hands darkened just slightly as he pressed inside of Stiles, but he had done well before. Stiles wrapped his legs around Derek, drawing him in completely, making him feel _wanted_. It was almost too much to stand.

" _Mine_ ," he murmured against the shell of Stiles' ear, eyes closed as he fought the almost overwhelming surge of possessiveness. His fingers curled on Stiles' hips, digging in, rooting Stiles flush against him. _Claiming_ him.

"Oh my _god_ ," Stiles groaned, and Derek buried his grin in Stiles' shoulder because the phrase was so familiar but the _tone_ was other-worldly.

When Stiles' hips bucked against his impatiently, Derek slid one hand out to brace against the bed, the other keeping its hold upon Stiles' hip as he began to move. He let himself get absorbed in the slow friction, of the feel of Stiles' muscles as he pushed back against every thrust, took Derek just that little bit deeper than he intended, drove him just a little bit wild.

His plans to take this slowly, to make Stiles really _feel_ every second, were thoroughly derailed by the sounds torn from Stiles' throat, by the way Stiles' hands found his skin, remembered every sensitive spot they had discovered three days ago. His control of the situation unraveled completely when Stiles found his words, when his mindless noises melted into bare coherence.

"Touch me, touch-" Stiles gasped, fingers grabbing at Derek's forearm. "Derek, _please_." With a heady groan, Derek shifted so that he could obey, run his thumb along the underside of Stiles' cock as he moved, wrap his hand around to match rhythms.

A few strokes and it was over, Stiles crying out, holding onto him, dragging him down with both hands around the back of his neck. Derek let go of whatever shreds of control he had left, thrusting into Stiles until he came as well, teeth sinking into the skin at Stiles' collarbone to muffle his own shout, just enough to bruise, lips and tongue drawing Stiles' blood to the surface, marking him deeply, just once. A low, stuttered moan rumbled Stiles' chest, his fingers threading into Derek's hair, keeping him there, lips to Stiles' skin.

They stayed that way until Stiles could feel the way Derek's muscles trembled. He let his legs fall, could already feel the ache that was starting in his thighs. Derek gave a thin, reedy whimper he obviously didn't intend as he withdrew and Stiles chuckled, leaned up to kiss him. Derek braced himself with one hand, the other slipping over Stiles' neck, along his jaw, around to his nape to press him in closer.

"We are quite the mess," Stiles said softly when the kiss broke. He could feel Derek's eyeroll in the twitch of his head, and he smiled.

Derek allowed himself to collapse, rolling to one side as he did so. He snatched the still-brand-new box of tissues from his nightstand and lobbed them at Stiles' head. Stiles laughed as he batted at them, knowing he wouldn't catch them, and the box landed somewhere between the two of them. He sat up and reached for it, began pulling out one after another until Derek took it away from him.

"You're worse than a cat," Derek accused, but it was hard to take him seriously when 'cat' turned into a yawn. He began pulling tissues out for himself to cover it up.

Stiles just smiled, because he didn't mind being the cat in a pack of wolves.

When they were as clean as they were going to get without a shower, Stiles laid his head back against the bed frame to collect himself for just a moment. They were going to have to talk - _really_ talk - about this at some point. He just didn't want it to be _now_ , when everything seemed so precariously OK.

Seemingly not on the same page, Derek scooted over until he was next to Stiles, until Stiles had to open his eyes because Derek was _staring_ at him intently. "Yes?" he asked cautiously.

Derek stiffened just a little and Stiles was afraid he was about to be kicked out of the room, possibly without clothes, but then Derek took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. "You don't... have to go?" he asked quietly, just a touch too solemn for comfort.

Stiles' brows furrowed, head tilting, because that wasn't an _order_ that was a _question._ Derek just waited patiently, watching him with a touch of... was it worry? Stiles' heart dropped cold into his belly when he realized that yes, it was, and he suddenly knew _why_.

No one had ever _stayed_ with Derek.

Not knowing what else to do, not knowing if Derek would be ok with it, Stiles did the only thing that felt right; he leaned over, grabbed Derek around the shoulders with both arms, and pulled him into a hug his father would have been proud of. Stiff and uncertain, Derek let him, but his stomach knotted up, his throat closed.

Because this wasn't new to Derek. This was old, very old, older than his new pack, older than the fire, older than Kate. This was something his sister used to do every night before bed. This was something his father had done when he was proud of Derek, something his mother had done every day before she sent him off to school. Derek was not unfamiliar with hugs, but it had been _so long_.

"You said I could stay," Stiles managed through the way his own throat had closed. "You said I could. I'm not going anywhere, Derek. Ok?"

Derek's eyes closed and slowly, so slowly, he raised his arm, clutched onto Stiles, buried his nose in the crook of Stiles' neck as he returned the hug. "Ok," he mumbled, the word muffled.

When at last Derek let go of him, it was not to go far. He scooted down the length of Stiles' body, one arm wrapped around him, head pressed onto his chest. Stiles held his arms up until Derek had gotten comfortable, and then stroked one hand down Derek's hair and let his fingers curl up at the nape of Derek's neck, where it was warm. With his other hand he reached down, twined his fingers in Derek's, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, and just... relaxed.

It was a while before Stiles opened his eyes again. He didn't so much lift his head from the wood of the bed frame as he did roll it to the side so that he could see. A smile curved his lips as his eyes fell upon Derek, head nestled upon Stiles' belly, arm thrown gently over Stiles' hips. It was the feather-soft brush of Derek's thumb over the jut of Stile's hip that had pulled him back to wakefulness. The almost involuntary, miniscule twitch of one of Derek's fingers told Stiles that he was listening to his heartbeat and only just barely keeping himself from tapping it out upon Stiles' skin.

Stiles raised one hand, carded it through Derek's damp hair, causing it to stand on end a little. Derek didn't flinch, didn't tell him to stop, and so he repeated the motion. He let his head fall back again, his eyes losing focus as he lay there stroking Derek's hair, letting everything just exist.

Of course, Stiles' mind never stayed idle long, not even for perfect, blissful moments. Maybe especially not for those, because he had learned there was always a price.

He didn't want to think what the price of this would be, what this would cost him.

He never really had a lot to lose; he'd never let himself collect a lot to lose, not after what had happened with his mother, and the things he did have he did everything in his power to protect. But now... there were so many more things than even a few months ago. There were so many people who had become precious to him without his knowledge or permission.

There had always been his father and his best friend and his best friend's mom, but there were others now. There was Allison because Scott loved her and even though she'd proven she could take care of herself, that didn't exempt her. There was Lydia and there was Jackson and there was Danny, and Stiles had never dreamed that he would name them friend and have it returned, even reluctantly. There was the pack, Isaac and Erica and Boyd, just coming into their new powers, making mistakes, trying to survive.

And there was Derek. He supposed there had always been Derek, but it was different tonight, he thought. Maybe it wasn't a _lot_ different, but it felt like it would be _worse_ to lose Derek now. To let Gerard step in, take him from Stiles before they'd really sorted this out, figured out what exactly they wanted. The fuzzy, vague idea of what he wanted trembled at the edge of his consciousness and he could tell it was a happy thing, a thing he wanted, he just wasn't sure what lay in store along the way.

But there was no way, _no fucking way_ , he thought fiercely, that he was going to let Gerard take away his chance to find out.

* * *

When Stiles left the Hale house a couple of hours later, it was possibly one of the most awkward moments of his life; which was saying quite a lot, as he'd had many, many awkward moments to choose from. Derek suggested that his father would be worried if he didn't return home after skipping out of class and had walked him downstairs, not bothering to put on his shirt. Upon opening the front door, they discovered Peter sitting on the front stoop, talking quietly to himself.

For a moment everyone had stared, and then Peter had clambered to his feet and offered them both a patient if patronizing smile. "Not going to stay the night?"

Stiles hesitated, breath sticking in his throat because he could feel the way Derek stiffened beside him. He knew what Derek was thinking. "Next time," Stiles said levelly, raising his chin in a challenge, looking Peter in the eyes. "I'll stay as often as Derek likes," he added, an extra jab to remind Peter than he wasn't at the lead of this pack. That what Derek wanted, he would get.

Peter managed not to bare his teeth. "I imagine it won't be so _boring_ here, then." He stepped aside so that Stiles could move past him.

After a heated glare at his uncle, Derek escorted Stiles to the door of his Jeep, crowded him up against it the second he turned around to say goodbye, and kissed him soundly. Stiles thought perhaps they shouldn't be making out with Peter standing _right there watching_ but he was hard pressed to continue any thoughts at all when Derek nipped hard at his bottom lip. So he kissed him back, reached up and slid his fingers through Derek's hair one last time.

When Derek pulled back, it was just enough to turn his head to the side, shift so that their temples touched, their cheeks brushed. His lips were next to Stiles' ear when he whispered. "Did you mean it?"

"Mean what?" Stiles asked, catching his breath, knuckles resting against Derek's chest. The feel of Derek's hands burned into his hips.

"That you'll stay..."

Stiles smiled, splayed his hands and turned his head to give Derek a chaste kiss on the cheek. "Of course. When you're ready. When it won't get me slaughtered by my father."

Derek pulled away and smiled, and Stiles thought he would do anything in the world to see that smile every single day. Anything. Everything. It deserved to see the light of day forever. It lit up his eyes, turned him into something just as other-worldly as his wolf form. He wondered if that was how Derek used to smile, once upon a time.

"Thank you," Derek said quietly. "For understanding."

Stiles had climbed into his Jeep as Derek trudged back to the house, grabbing Peter by the arm as he walked by. Peter looked vaguely offended but didn't resist and Stiles overheard his rather loud last comment as Derek herded him back indoors. "You've found quite a vocal one, haven't you?"

The blush that leapt to Stiles' cheeks was outdone only by his smile as he caught Derek's tired "Do you even _remember_ having a filter?" as he shut the door.

Well, he'd thought as he turned the ignition and began to drive. At least he wasn't the only one having awkward family conversations about the situation.

Now he was home, the top drawer of his dresser open, the shirts inside shoved to one side to give him access to the tools beneath. He slipped a knife into the inner sheath in his boot, wiggled his foot around to see how it felt. He'd put this outfit on only once before, and he hadn't filled all the nooks like he was now. He'd also never worn it in public because it would really just be ridiculous to let any of the pack know he owned a leather jacket.

So he filled the belt's little pockets with tiny bottles of wolfsbane, slipped a pepper spray canister and two miniature containers filled with molotov cocktails into the loops on the side. A skin meant for water, with an easy-pour spout, hung from the belt on the other side, full of mountain ash acquired from Dr. Deaton at one of their lessons last month. A short, thin blade coated in wolfsbane hung at his side, a gift from Allison's father after Stiles had come to him asking for self-defense information.

He had _hated_ feeling so helpless against Gerard the last time.

He may not have been a hero, but he sure as _hell_ wasn't going to be a damsel in distress.

As he ticked off the list of defenses, he heard his father enter the house, listened to him climb the stairs. He'd hoped to make it out before his dad got home from work, but he wasn't going to be allowed that much good fortune tonight. He took a deep breath, because he knew what was coming.

When his dad opened his door, he didn't turn around. "Hey, Dad."

"The school called today," his father said evenly. "You missed your last two classes. You know finals are coming up, right?"

Stiles tried not to feel guilty, because he did know. "I'm acing chemistry despite Harris' best efforts to fail me," he offered. "And I swear I'll work on my English final the second I get back."

"Get back?" his father repeated in a tone that said _just where do you think you're going because you're not._

Hesitating, Stiles reached into the drawer and pulled out a bottle of wolfsbane oil extract. It was the good stuff, the sort Deaton had told him would kill a werewolf just for coming in contact with it. It was the sort he'd kept on the blade at his side since Derek had told them about the alphas. That had been the same night Derek had told them about a lot of things. His family. His history with Kate. His plans for the Pack, so that they would stay with him. Stiles had a love hate relationship with that night.

He set aside the memory and turned to face his father. "I have to go out tonight," he said evenly, pacing across the room to his desk. He tore a piece of paper from the notepad beside his computer, scribbled numbers across it as he spoke. "If everything goes well, then I'll be back in an hour or two." His pen paused. "I don't... expect it will go _well_ , exactly." He jotted the last two numbers, crossed back to his father and passed him the paper.

Looking at the numbers, his father's brows furrowed. "Whose number is this?"

"Derek's," Stiles said. It sounded so _grave_ when he said it like that. "If I'm not back in a few hours, call him."

"Why can't I call you?" his dad asked, frowning first at the numbers on the page and then at Stiles.

"Because I can't keep my phone on. It could be... unfortunate," he said.

His father crossed his arms, giving Stiles a very disapproving _well you're definitely not going now_ stare. "I'm not just going to let you walk out at nine o'clock on a school night with the expectation that you _might_ be back in _a few hours_. Especially if it's as dangerous as you're making it sound."

"It's not dangerous," Stiles lied quickly. "It's not," he reiterated when his father gave him a look. "Ok, it is. Look, Dad, I _have_ to go. Yes, it's very dangerous, and yes, I could get hurt, but Deaton has taught me a lot about protecting myself. And if I don't do this, lots of people are going to get hurt. Lots of people might get hurt anyway, but I _have_ to try."

"Then let me go with you," his dad demanded.

"You can't," Stiles told him, even though he hated to say it. "It's actually safer if I go alone. But... here." With a flourish, he held up the bottle in his hand between his finger and his thumb so that the light glittered off of the swirling green liquid. "This is aconite oil. It's really, really poisonous to humans and it's absolutely deadly to werewolves. Take a qtip and coat a few bullets with it, and keep your gun loaded with them tonight. It might not be safe here either."

His father accepted the vial, still staring steadily at Stiles. "What do you think is going to happen?" he asked softly. "Is it Gerard? Did he get bitten like he wanted?"

"Not yet," Stiles said. "But in case things go _wrong_."

"I don't like this, Stiles," his father told him.

"I know," Stiles said, feeling horrible, guilty. He wanted to tell his father his plan, wanted to have him along for the night, but he knew how stupid that would be. His father didn't know how to handle the supernatural. He didn't know how to face down a hunter, especially not like these. "But you have to let me go."

His father sighed because as much as he didn't like it, he'd learned enough about their supernatural world to know that there were times he was in over his head, times when Stiles actually did know more about situations than his father did. There were times now that Stiles was going to have to be trusted to make a judgment call. Times his father couldn't be his father, couldn't be the sheriff, had to be a bystander in his son's life. His hand tightened around the bottle of oil.

"Will you at least tell me where you're going, so I can come looking for you myself?" _If you don't come home_ lay unspoken between them.

Stiles quirked a small half smile, a silent surrender to at least this demand. "The south end of the Preserve," he said, conceding. "I'm going hunting."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First time writing out a scene like that, so forgive me (and blame Chasing and Qhuinn)! And now we're caught up with what's posted on FF :D


	11. Chapter 11

The forest was dark as Stiles moved through it, and the moon, just barely not a new moon, was not as much help as it might have been if the trees were barren. A part of him wished for a flashlight, but he knew it would have made him too obvious. It would have made him prey. Without a light he became a predator, something to watch, something to be wary of because if he felt safe enough to wander _these_ woods in the black of night, he must _know something_. He must be _prepared._

So when he noticed that he was being followed, he was not surprised. Maybe they could smell the wolfsbane. Maybe they knew he was armed, maybe they just wanted to make sure he didn't get too _close_. Whatever it was, they didn't outright attack him, and he didn't wait for them. He just kept walking, just kept moving, listening, judging where they were, counting that it was only two of the five that had found him. He had enough wolfsbane to stun two of them for a while. Long enough to run for it if things went sour.

Maybe.

A rustle of leaves came from his right, and he caught a glint of red in the darkness. They were ready to face him. He halted instantly, raised his hands up on either side so they could see he held no weapons. He posed no threat. If they wanted, they could kill him now before he even got close to the arsenal at his belt.

"You're up late, Little Red," crooned a voice to his left, drawing his attention that way instead. "Looking for grandma's house?"

"No." Stiles swallowed thickly, mouth dry with fear he really hoped they couldn't sense. "I'm looking for the wolf."

"Oh my," chimed a silky voice to his right. He didn't have to see them to know he was trapped between the two alphas. "I think he wants to be the huntsman."

"Not tonight, boys," Stiles said quietly. "I'm here for business, not pleasure. We'll have to save the role playing games for another night."

Chuckles chimed from both sides of him and then the shadows shifted, melted into the patchy moonlight to Stiles' right side and it took every ounce of courage he had not to bolt. The alpha was huge, a hulking mass of muscle and fur and fangs. His red eyes stood out over his long snout, regarding Stiles like the unearthly predator that he was. The amount of mistaken Stiles was feeling as he stared into those red pools of death was topped only when he caught the second alpha emerging to his other side.

It was even larger.

Both were in their alpha forms, more beast than human. Even crouched upon all fours, their heads were nearly level with Stiles' shoulders. The first moved forward at an even pace, pushed off the ground with his hands and towered over Stiles. There were times in Stiles' life where he gave consideration to all the choices he probably shouldn't have made. Coming out into the woods alone in the middle of the night to find a pack of alpha werewolves was suddenly one of them.

"Well," the wolf said, and it was a little disconcerting to hear the voice coming from an animal. Stiles didn't flinch, didn't waver; he wasn't sure it was bravery, because his legs had locked up and taken the choice of flight from him entirely. "You lot certainly are _bold_ , coming into our neck of the woods. Very... _persistent_ , for humans."

Stiles' brow furrowed in confusion. His mind ticked over anyone that might have come here; had the hunters beaten him to the alpha pack? Had they already been defeated? "What do you mean? Someone else came for you?"

The first smiled slyly, or at least Stiles imagined that is what the draw of his lips away from all those glistening teeth meant. "Cute," he said dryly. "But we know you're here to get her back. We just didn't think you'd be so... obvious."

Stiles wished his heart would just calm the fuck down, because he knew who they were talking about. It was Allison, it had to be Allison. She must have come to the same conclusion as Stiles, that perhaps these alphas would be immune because they didn't associate with humans. If they could enlist them, which should be easy considering the ever-ongoing fight between hunters and werewolves, then Gerard wouldn't stand a chance.

"Where is she?" Stiles demanded, straightening. If they _did_ have Allison, if she was alive, then perhaps with Stiles' little mobile armory they could manage to escape.

The second alpha snarled at his tone. "You won't find her," he growled. "Not until we leave her _carcass_ for the birds."

Stiles resisted the urge to throw a vial of wolfsbane at the werewolf behind him, because he knew better. Boyd had told them about these two, at least a little, and he knew that if he turned his back on the one in front of him, it really would be over. "Maybe not," he agreed. "But I don't have to find her. You're going to take me to her."

Over the growl of the second alpha, the first asked: "And why would we do that?"

Stiles forced a smile onto his lips, and yes, it was perhaps overly dramatic, but he decided to go with the first thing that came to mind. "Because if you don't, you're all going to die."

Snarls erupted from both of them a moment before two paws hit his back at full tilt, knocking him into the leaves and dirt of the forest floor. Grit mashed hard into the palms of his hands. Before he could flip over, the first alpha had lunged forward, batting away the second and then lording over the human, teeth bared, hackles raised. Stiles held his breath, because _what the fuck was going on_?

"Aiden!" reprimanded the first alpha. "You damage him, and she'll rip your face off." A snarl was the only response. Stiles kept his eyes closed, praying that whatever was going on they wouldn't both agree killing him was a good idea.

"So, what, you're going to just take him to her?" Aiden growled after a pause where Stiles assumed they were glaring at one another.

The first watched Aiden for a moment, as if judging whether or not he would continue to comply, and then removed himself from the protective crouch to move to Aiden's side. Stiles did not get up because he was not really sure he had permission. He wasn't sure if he needed permission, but he didn't want to find out the hard way that he was expected to stay down.

Nosing at his brother, Ethan - or so Stiles guessed from what Boyd had told them - began to move away from Stiles without so much as a backward glance. "If he wants to meet Kali, he can," he said softly as Aiden continued staring at Stiles with burning red eyes. Ethan paused, looked over his shoulder at Stiles. "We can't guarantee you'll _like_ it," he told Stiles as he began to pad away from them.

Stiles rolled over, caught Aiden's crimson eyes as Ethan left them alone together. He swallowed, unsure if he was allowed to get up, but then Aiden was on his feet and turning to follow his brother. "It will be a _learning experience_ ," he cackled as he bounded to catch up to Ethan, his harsh, barking laughter scattering off into the darkness.

"I like learning," Stiles grumbled as he clambered to his feet. Ethan paused, half turned to await him, and gave a toothy, menacing grin.

"We'll see."

The twin alphas slipped through the darkness as if they belonged to it, herding Stiles silently through the forest, twisting and turning him until even his sense of direction had been confounded. Stiles tried to keep an eye on the moon, but the slim glances he caught between the thick summer pelts of the trees were not helpful. He was just beginning to despair, to suspect that they were really just leading him in circles, to see how long it took him to drop from exhaustion, when they disappeared.

Halting, Stiles looked around himself. The sliver of moon just barely illuminated the small clearing to which he'd been lead, casting everything around him in pale, blue-white light. Meadow grass coated the ground, thick and almost soft, almost as if it was cultivated. Across the clearing from him, an outcropping of rock lay jaggedly up from the ground. He thought he could make out some small figure curled up at the base of it. He was just tilting his head to the side to try and make sense of what he was looking at when he heard it.

Breathing.

"Aiden?" he called softly, unable to place exactly where the harsh breathing originated. "Ethan?"

A low, dangerous growl emanated from directly behind him.

The forest floor was not nearly as soft as it looked, a fact Stiles discovered as his balance was kicked out from behind him. He barked his knees as he landed, but he contained the pained yelp, kept his jaw wired shut as the alpha watched from behind him. In the darkness he heard the harsh, throaty laughter of the twins.

"Aiden, Ethan," lilted a smooth, feminine voice behind him, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. The fear which coiled in his gut wiped out the satisfaction of correctly guessing the first werewolf's name. "What have you brought to me? It reeks of wolfsbane and rut."

A whisper of dry leaves rustled to one side of him and Stiles caught sight of one of them at the edge of the darkness. "We found him wandering the woods alone," Ethan told her. "Belongs to the Hale whelp."

Stiles felt the cool touch of claws laid against the skin of his neck as she hooked one long finger under the collar of his shirt and pulled it to the side. The motion exposed the mark Derek had made earlier in the day. Her breath was hot on his neck when she spoke. "It's been a long time since I saw an alpha-mark that obvious. I can _smell_ it on you, boy."

Without even a second thought he closed his eyes and lifted his chin, tipping his head far to the side to expose the pale length of his throat to her. A rumble of approval scratched up from deep in her chest and she moved forward, wove around to his front. She was thinner than the twins, lankier, with burnished red dusted over her grey coat. She was _beautiful_ despite that she was staring at Stiles as if he would look better without his throat attached.

"You're certainly brave," she observed, almost amused. He didn't flinch, didn't move.

"I came with information," he offered, barely a breath. "About the hunters."

A hum of disinterest. "In a decade I haven't met a hunter that could best our pack. You'll have to do better than that."

"Aconitum Vinculum," he said, hoping she would recognize the latin name of the wolfsbane. "The hunters have it."

She hackled, bared her teeth at him. "We _destroyed_ it," she hissed, furious, and then she was upon him, knocked him backward and stopped with one clawed hand upon his chest. "We razed every last plant to the ground. Liar!"

Stiles could feel himself shaking, could barely breathe past the way her hand pressed into his chest, but he did not back down from the challenge. "It's true, okay? I accidentally got dosed. Derek got dosed, too. And Scott and Jackson. We're sure Gerard Argent has some."

"Argent," she spat. He wasn't entirely sure she wasn't going to rip him apart just for speaking the name. It would be so easy.

"Not just an Argent," Stiles pointed out desperately. "It's Gerard, okay? He wants the bite, and he's going to make sure Derek gives it to him one way or another. We know he intends to drug Derek and he has to be stopped."

Her snout wrinkled in distaste at the notion. "You want our _help_."

"We _need_ your help," Stiles clarified.

She snorted. "It's not our business if your pack can't save itself from being hunted."

"He's not just hunting werewolves," Stiles countered. "When he gets the bite, he's going to _kill Derek_ and then he's not just going to be a hunter anymore. He's going to be a hunter with _alpha werewolf powers_. He's going to turn his friends, and he's going to come after you guys next so that they can be alphas too. You're not disconnected from this. You're in just as much danger."

This she considered for a moment, staring levelly at him though he refused to look her in the eyes. A wise decision on his part. She tilted her head, looking thoughtful, and leaned in close, hand pressing into his chest until he really couldn't breathe, crowded into Stiles' personal space. She sniffed the air near him, ears cocked forward to hear his heartbeat. "You really mean it. You actually think he's going to challenge us." .

Stiles nodded, because he couldn't breathe and if she didn't let up he wasn't going to be conscious much longer.

When her clawed hand released him, he tilted his head again, baring his neck submissively. He really hoped he wasn't about the die horribly. He had plans that didn't involve that particular scenario. She seemed to take this as sufficient, and removed herself from above him.

"Look, we may not be friends," he gasped, chest still tight. He did not get up. "But this is bigger than either of our packs, right? So maybe we work together just once. Just to get rid of Gerard."

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend," she quoted.

"Yes, exactly," Stiles agree, jumping on the opportunity.

"What do you think, boys?" she called, staring at Stiles despite that he kept his eyes averted. "Do we make pacts with humans?"

Cackles rose from the darkness, hushed by a thick, deep growl Stiles hadn't heard yet. He swallowed, because that meant four of five were present at least. "You know we don't, Kali," rumbled the new voice. "He told you to keep an eye on the girl."

She glanced over her shoulder almost carelessly, and it was then that Stiles realized what he had seen earlier. It wasn't an alpha curled at the bottom of the rock outcropping; it was a human. The alpha before him shrugged, as if it doesn't matter. "She's still alive," she told him nonchalantly. Then her gaze slid sideways, to the twins. "Boys, how do you feel about escorting a lady home?"

Ethan's lithe form flowed into the light and he flashed a devious smile to Stiles before looking to Kali. "Does she have to be _alive_ when we get there?"

"She has to be alive," Kali told him, crimson eyes trained on Stiles. He steadfastly did not meet her gaze, though his eyes were wide and she could see him shaking. "She doesn't have to be... _unscathed_."

Stiles lurched into a sitting position when he heard the body being dragged out from under the rocks. Allison wasn't moving and Stiles could just barely make out from the way her limbs stayed in place that she was bound. It wasn't until Ethan was dragging her directly past him that he caught a better glimpse of her.

It wasn't until he saw her strawberry-blonde hair that he realized it _wasn't Allison_.

It was _Lydia_ _._

A strangled noise escaped him as he forgot himself, reached for her, but a throaty snarl from Aiden stopped him cold. He couldn't tear his eyes from her, from the dirt smudging her skin, the blood crusting into her hair from where she'd been hit. He felt as helpless as he'd been on the lacrosse field, only instead of Peter crouched over Lydia, it was Aiden, and Ethan was circling closer, enjoying watching him.

"Lydia!" he called, hating the way his stomach ground itself into knots, the way his blood ran cold and his head went light with adrenaline when she didn't stir. What was she even _doing_ here?

_If you can't protect him, I will._

"Let her go!" he demanded fiercely, finally daring to meet Kali's gaze. She snarled when he did, and he looked away, shame flushing his skin at his cowardice. "She'd better be okay."

"She's not worth much dead," Ethan needled. "A little... _roughing up_ never hurt anyone. Well... not _permanently._ "

Stiles felt his fingers brush one of the bottles of wolfsbane.

Kali put herself between the twins and Stiles, caught Ethan's eyes with a level stare. "Take her to the Argents," she ordered firmly. "Leave them with the message to find us at the Ironworks. I don't care how they get the message."

Ethan stared at her for a moment, as if considering her words, and then dropped his gaze to meet Stiles' eyes. "Maybe we'll write it out for them," he suggested, drawing out the words in a way that made Stiles' skin crawl with dread. He didn't ask what they would write it in, afraid that they would tell him 'blood.'

Aiden snickered and then Lydia was limp in his arms as he snatched her up and disappeared into the darkness. Ethan was a moment behind, and then they were gone. Stiles stared out into the forest, trying to hold it together, trying to keep from sprinting after them, shouting at them to _fight him_ because it was _Lydia_. If they hurt her, he swore he wouldn't let a single one of them live. He swore he would make it _slow_.

With that cold fury burning inside of him, he turned back to Kali. "You had better hope," he said quietly, firmly. "That she makes it to the Argents alive."

Kali's lips peeled back from her sharp teeth at his words, and Stiles dropped his gaze just slightly. Her eyes narrowed as she considered the frail human before her. He had guts, that much was obvious. He'd come looking for a pack of alpha werewolves in the middle of the night on their turf; even armed with his little belt of wonders, he was hopelessly outmatched. But something was important enough to him to risk it.

Or, she thought, remembering the mark, some _one._

She held up one slender finger, pointed in his general direction. "You," she said thoughtfully out loud. She dropped to all fours, circled around him where he still lay on the forest floor, propped on his elbows. He watched her cautiously, although he knew there was absolutely nothing he could do if she chose to attack.

Instead, she reached out one claw and hooked it under the collar of his shirt, exposing the mark Derek had left earlier. "You are something else. Your alpha will come looking for you."

He closed his eyes, felt the tips of her claws on his shoulder, the pad of her long index finger resting over the mark. He could _hear_ the cruel smile in her voice even though she was behind him. She drew him in close, her long jaws uncomfortably close to his ear when she spoke.

"I hope you don't mind being _bait_."

His eyes snapped wide open as he felt the prick of her claws sliding into his skin, and then his world swirled into darkness and he flopped backward onto the ground. Kali pulled her claws from his shoulder, slick with his blood, and smiled down upon him. "A shame," she said quietly. "He's very brave, don't you think?"

The other alpha scowled. "What are you going to do with him?"

She rolled her shoulder in a shrug, bent to scoop up the unconscious human as if he weighed nothing at all. Then she looked over to the other. "What do you think, Ennis?" she asked dryly. "I'm going to take him downtown. The Hale alpha marked him; he'll come looking for him. If the twins have done their job, the hunters will be there to greet them. Can you imagine how _fun_ that will be?"

"That's not the plan," he told her. "Deucalion won't like it."

Her lips pulled back from her teeth in a smile that was anything but pleasant. "I suppose it's a good thing Duke doesn't have to _like_ everything I do, isn't it?"

He bared his teeth back, though he was clearly uneasy about it. They were both alphas, but she was stronger, older, more dangerous. "I'm not going to be a part of this," he warned her. "I'm not taking the fall if you screw this up."

With a quick lunge, she snapped her razor jaws at him and he skipped backward, growling. She snorted, because she knew he couldn't take her in a fight. It didn't matter, not right now. "Perhaps you'd better scurry off and tell him then," she sniped. "He can come watch."

For just a moment they squared off, crimson eyes locked as Kali stood tall and the other hackled and watched her, trying to decide. Then he had turned away, dropping to all fours and dashing off into the dark of the night time forest. She watched him go for a moment, listened to him padding swiftly through the trees, and then looked down at the unconscious boy in her arms.

He was so _small_ next to her alpha form. He was lithe and strong, but he was not a fighter. He was not even a hunter, not really, unless they had started taking somewhat scrawny kids. Yet he had done something, done _enough_ that Derek would give him the sort of mark that graced his collarbone. She could see blood dripping from it, knew that there would be a puckered scar from where her claws had sunk in over the mark, near his heart.

Despite the human's enigma, she smiled.

Tonight was certainly going to be _interesting_.

* * *

Chris Argent raised his eyes from his book when the doorbell rang. It was late, past-midnight late, and the only person he could think of that would be at his door at this hour would be his father. Which was impossible, because the very last thing his father would be doing at this point would be coming home. He hadn't done so but briefly after the kanima incident, though Chris and Allison had taken turns keeping an eye on where he had disappeared to, as much to protect the town from Gerard as to protect Gerard from the nosy veterinarian.

So when he reached the door and drew it open to find no one at all standing there, he was considerably confused and instantly on the alert. He retreated just a couple of steps, fetched the handgun that slept by the front door just in case, and looked back around the open door. The night was still and heavy with the scent of coming rainfall.

"Hello?" he called, hoping that it was just stupid teenage kids pulling stupid teenage pranks. The crazed, cackling howls that answered him from past the edge of the light told him otherwise. "Show yourselves," he demanded firmly.

He expected to see Derek or his betas, maybe the Lahey kid or Jackson. When two fully alpha werewolves broached the edge of the light instead, red eyes glowing as they watched him steadily, his heart picked up tempo. He took aim, the gun loaded with wolfsbane bullets... and then he caught sight of the burden the closest alpha carried.

It was a girl.

Chris' eyes widened.

It was _Lydia_ , he realized, and his gun lowered slightly. She was injured, if the way she hung limply in the alpha's arms were any indication. There was no visible blood, except for the patch which had matted into her strawberry-blonde hair on the side of her head. His blood ran cold with fear that she was dead, that he would have to explain to Allison that yet another person she cared for had died at the hands of a werewolf. She would be _crushed_.

"That's far enough," he called out. "Put her down and I'll let you leave."

The harsh, barking laughter which bubbled up from both the alphas throats grated in the still night air. The unburdened one bounded forward another step on all fours, raised himself up until he balanced on his hind legs, looming over Chris. " _Let_ us leave, Argent?" he goaded, a vicious grin splitting his jaws to reveal long, sharp canines. "That will be the day."

"Leave the girl," Chris ordered again, raising his gun to the bolder of the two. "I don't want a fight."

The one carrying Lydia gave a yelp of laughter. "That's the fun thing about fights," he crowed. "You don't have to want them!"

The other snorted, smile completely unfaltering. "We don't want a fight, Argent. Look, we even brought a peace offering. You know this girl. She was... lost in the woods," he said graciously. "We brought her home. We're so nice, she's even in one piece."

Chris let his gaze flicker back to Lydia. She was being laid out upon his lawn and the moment he was free of her, the alpha backed off, sidestepped to the other's side. "You're not in the business of random acts of kindness," he accused levelly. "Why are you bringing her to me and not her family?"

"You like us better," said the sly one, grinning maniacally at the joke. "The question is, why we didn't bring you the other one."

Something inside of Chris hackled and screamed 'trap' at him. "Other one?" he asked. He switched the focus of his gun when the carrier moved a step closer. Both alpha's froze, eyes fixed upon him.

"Kali wanted that one," the brawny one told him.

"She's showing him a night out," said the other. "They're going to paint the town _red_ tonight." Dread coiled thick in Chris' belly at what he suspected the alpha's definition of 'red' was.

"Get out of here," he told them, instead of buying into their bait. "Before I shoot you both."

Their twin smiles unnerved Chris, although he would never admit it. Together they bowed to him, dipping their heads before they turned to run. The brawny one disappeared into the darkness like he was made of it but the sly one paused, turned to look over at the girl that lay prone.

"She's alive," he told Chris quietly. "But _he_ might not be by the time you find him downtown. _Good luck._ "

Then he was gone as well and Chris had lowered the gun, shouted out for Allison as he dashed across the front lawn to where Lydia lay. He felt for her pulse, found it beating steadily, strongly. She was, in fact, uninjured save for being unconscious, as near as he could tell. She began to stir just as Allison appeared, eyes full of sleep, still in her pajamas.

"Lydia!" Allison exclaimed when she saw the situation. She was beside her best friend in an instant, helping her to sit up as her dad kept watch over both of them. "Lydia, what _happened_?"

Lydia didn't bother opening her eyes, just scrunched her nose a little in pain. "Allison?"

"Yeah, yeah it's me," Allison answered. "Dad?"

"Alphas," he answered her unspoken question. "They dropped her off and just... left." He looked over his shoulder and she could see the worry scrawled across his face. "They said they had someone else downtown."

"Who?" Lydia and Allison asked at the same time, and then they looked at one another.

"Didn't say," Chris told them. "Get her inside and we'll figure that out."

Allison helped Lydia to her feet. She swayed at first, and then seemed to find her balance. She didn't let go of Allison, however, clinging to her arm more for reassurance than for need. Allison didn't mind; it was not often that Lydia Martin was in a position to need this kind of help, after all.

"We should call Jackson," Allison suggested as her father lead them into the house and disappeared into the kitchen. "Let him know what happened and that you are ok."

"What if it's him?" Lydia asked softly. "They were going to use me as bait. Jackson's the one that would show up first. What if he did?"

"If you were bait, I don't think they'd bring you back if they caught him," Allison reasoned, closing the door behind them. Lydia leaned against the frame, looking as if she were about to burst into tears. "How did they get you?"

Lydia sighed. "I went looking for them," she said. For as much as she had told Stiles he was being an idiot earlier in the day, she certainly felt she was the idiot now. "I thought they might be able to help with the whole wolfsbane thing. I had reason to believe they would be immune."

Allison sighed and walked Lydia into the family room, got her sitting on the couch without complaint. She passed Lydia her phone and told her to call Jackson herself. Lydia obeyed in ways which Lydia rarely ever did. Jackson answered on the second ring and before Lydia had even begun to tell the story he'd insisted on coming over immediately.

"I don't want him to go," Lydia told Allison desperately. "Go with your dad. Go looking for who-ever they've got, Allison. Just don't involve Jackson. Please."

Nodding, Allison stroked a hand over Lydia's mussed, blood-clumped hair. "Ok," she agreed. "I'll go get him and we'll go but... you know... promise me you'll take a shower and stay here with Jackson so we know you two are safe? Please?"

Lydia smiled. "Okay," she agreed meekly. "I promise."

Chris appeared in the doorway then, and Allison met his eyes. "Let's go," she told him. "My bow is already in the car."

"Going to call Scott?" he asked, tilting his head.

"On the way," she assured him. "Come on."

Just as they reached the door, Lydia called out. "Allison!" When Allison stopped, turned partway to look back, Lydia gave her a weak smile. "Thanks. Good luck."

Allison smiled back and closed the door behind them.

* * *

When the theme song for the Andy Griffith show cheerfully filled his bedroom, Derek really did try to scowl, but the lettering on the screen read "Stiles' Dad" and he really couldn't help but roll his eyes and smile. Maybe he really should lock his phone like Scott told him to, so that Stiles could not make a habit of changing his ring-tones to ridiculous things. He tapped the screen and steeled himself for whatever repercussions were on their way for what had been going on with the sheriff's son.

"Hello?"

"Derek?" filtered through the sheriff's voice.

"Sheriff," he greeted. "What can I do for you?" He didn't bother asking where he'd gotten the number, though he was deathly curious why Stiles would have turned it over.

"Is Stiles there?"

Derek looked at his phone, and then glanced out the window just in case Stiles' Jeep really was here and he somehow hadn't heard it. "Uh... no? He was, but he left this afternoon." He just barely caught the distressed huff of breath on the other end. "Why?"

The sheriff sighed and Derek fought the sense of deja vu the noise conjured. That noise had been burned into him almost over six years ago, a part of the flashbulb memory of the moment the Sheriff had gotten to his knees in front of Derek as he sat in an uncomfortable chair in the police department. That noise was the noise that had, by seconds only, preceded the words _Son, there's been an accident_.

"Sheriff...?"

"Stiles left the house around nine, and he said he'd be back in a couple hours."

Derek glanced at the clock. Past midnight. "Did you call Scott?"

The sheriff snorted, because of course he would call Scott. Except that he hadn't, because Stiles had told him to call Derek. "He told me to call you if he wasn't back. He said that he was going _hunting_. I assumed he meant with you or the others."

A cold lump of fear settled in Derek's belly. "No," he said. "The betas are here with me. He didn't say where he was going?"

"He said the south end of the preserve," the sheriff told him.

Derek froze, unable to breathe. There was only one reason Stiles could have possibly gone to the south end of the preserve, especially at night and alone. He cursed. "And you just _let him_?" he growled, unable to contain the anger.

"I know," the sheriff said, and Derek could hear the thick self-blame.

He took a deep breath, because he knew that feeling. He also knew that there was nothing Stiles' father could have done; if Stiles had wanted out tonight, nothing short of chaining him up and camping next to him would have worked.

"There's nothing we can do about it now," he said, dismissing blame until later. Until Stiles was safe. "We _have_ to find him, immediately. Sir, he is in a _lot_ of danger if he's gone where I think he's gone. I am going to get the pack out there looking. Meet us at the south entrance as soon as you can."

"Okay," the sheriff responded. Derek's heart twisted up inside his chest at the tone.

"Sir... we'll find him," he reassured Stiles' dad quietly. He just wished he felt as confident as he sounded. The last missing person he'd gone looking for had been Laura, and that had ended much worse than poorly. He managed not to say that aloud.

There was a long pause, and Derek strained to hear anything from the other side. Then a sigh, a release of tension. "I know." The sheriff took a deep, calming breath. "Thanks. I'll see you out there."

The phone went dead in his hands and Derek looked up to find Isaac, Erica, and Boyd crowded into his doorway. Isaac's phone was in his hands as if he'd just been talking on it as well. They were all staring at him expectantly, worriedly, had obviously heard the conversation. Slowly he pocketed his phone, then followed the sheriff's example and took a deep breath.

"You all heard Stiles is missing?" he asked, looking from one to the next with solemnity.

Erica and Isaac nodded. "Scott just called," Isaac said, wiggling his phone as evidence. "Lydia turned up at Allison's courtesy of two alphas. She's fine, but one of them said they have someone else downtown."

"Stiles," Derek said, and the three nodded. "And they didn't say where downtown." He didn't have to ask; if his betas knew they would have told him immediately.

Boyd said: "We're gonna find him, Derek."

Derek's eyes misted over with red as he nodded. Yes, they would find Stiles- and when they did... someone was going to _pay_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's actually unfortunate that this has caught up to what I have posted on FF now... because now you have to actually wait for me to write what comes next...


	12. Chapter 12

** Chapter Twelve  
**

Clawing his way to consciousness, Stiles struggled to gain an upright position against the pillar of stone at his back. He groaned, pressing the heel of one hand to the side of his head in an attempt to stop the throbbing, spiky pain. It was dark where he was, but even the thin, reedy light from the nearest lamp seemed to attack him if he kept his eyes open. With his free hand he dabbed touches around the crown of his head until he found the blood, felt the bruising where he'd been hit. He could feel the dampness of blood over his chest.

Bastards, he thought.

Getting to his feet was an event which took two pretty spectacular failures to complete. He leaned against the pillar as the Ironworks tilted and contracted around him, had to wait for it to calm itself down so that he could start walking. It was still dark out, so he couldn't have been out long; enough time to get to town, which was hardly ten minutes from where he last remembered being. Which was probably not the last place he'd actually been, but he was having a difficult time remembering.

He stumbled toward the light, determined to get to someplace where he could be seen if he passed out again. His stomach was roiling, though he couldn't determine if he was actually going to be sick or if whatever head trauma he was suffering was making it only _seem_ like he was nauseated. He supposed it didn't really matter; there was nothing in his stomach if he was actually sick.

When he reached the light he tipped himself to the side and collapsed in the ring of it. Vaguely he was aware of being in and out of consciousness, knew that time was passing, although how much he couldn't have said. Not hours, because when the tires of Derek's camaro obscured his view of the Ironworks it was still dark. He was feeling better, though, except for the throbbing pain in his shoulder. He managed to get his cheek off the cement enough to resemble being in a sitting position.

"Stiles!" Derek practically flung himself from the car, didn't even bother slamming the door before he was on his knees beside Stiles, hands splayed in the air around the human like he was afraid touching him might hurt him worse. "Stiles!"

He really wished Derek would stop shouting at him, it was not helping the pain in his head take a hike. "I'm fine," he lied. His heartbeat didn't jump, though; he was just too tired.

"You're bleeding!" Derek told him, as if he didn't know. He could smell the blood in Stiles' hair, on his chest and... and there was the scent of something _else_. Something unpleasant, something he didn't recognize, but it was all over Stiles, clinging to his clothes and skin, something which sent all of Derek's senses into protective overdrive.

"I think I got hit," Stiles replied as he began to struggle to his feet. Derek held out a very steady arm, which Stiles gratefully accepted. "In the head. I think I lost a little bit of time, but I'm already feeling better than a few minutes ago," he explained. "How on Earth did you _find_ me?"

"Find you?" Derek asked incredulously as Stiles swayed unsteadily. Derek held on tighter. "We've been searching for hours, Stiles. Your father called to say you didn't come home. Scott called saying Lydia was delivered to Allison by alphas and that they had you downtown. Do you have any idea how worried everyone's been?"

Stiles winced. "I'm sorry," he apologized. "Is she ok? Is Lydia ok?"

"She's fine but- woah!" Derek caught Stiles as he began to topple over, then swooped Stiles' legs from under him. Stiles yelped at the sudden imbalance, but then Derek was carrying him and that was a lot easier than walking. "But you're still in trouble," he said roughly, not looking down as he skirted the edge of his camaro to get to the passenger side.

Stiles just rested his head against Derek's arm until he had to put his feet down and get into the car. Derek held the door open as he practically dropped into the bucket seat and moved himself so the door could close. The window was already down, and Derek knelt so that he could cross his arms on the window's edge and see him. His eyes fixed upon the bloody stain on Stiles' chest.

"It's fine," Stiles said, head resting against the back of the seat. "It's not even deep."

"Show me," Derek ordered softly.

"Derek-"

"Please," Derek said, catching Stiles' eye. "It's important."

Rolling his eyes, Stiles reached up and pulled down the collar of his shirt to reveal the bloody claw marks Kali had left. There were three of them; the largest one, the center one, pierced right through the middle of the last mark Derek had left. Derek's jaw clenched as he stared at it, and Stiles covered it back up. "Are the others still out looking?"

Derek drew in a deep breath, as if to calm himself, and nodded. Without getting up, he reached into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and sent a text to the betas with their location. Stiles watched him fumbling with pressing the letters on the screen and couldn't help but smile because it was just as silly as he always assumed it would be. But, he realized with no small amount of warmth, Derek was not calling them... perhaps he didn't call Stiles back out of frustration after all.

After a few moments Scott texted that he and Allison were nearby, and Erica returned that they were across town, but to wait there. Satisfied, Derek pocketed his phone.

"You need to call you father," he said softly. "He's out here too, and he's been worried sick."

Stiles couldn't help the small twitch that crossed his features at the mention of 'sick' and 'father' in the same breath. "Yeah. Ok," he said, and fumbled into his jacket for his phone. He realized he was still wearing leather, and spared a moment's wonder as to what Derek thought of it. If he noticed. Then he was pressing the number one speed dial, and listening to the harsh trill of a ringing phone.

There was no hello when his father answered, only a panicked "Stiles? Are you ok?"

"I'm fine, Dad," he said, suddenly feeling bone-crushingly tired, his shoulder throbbing, his head aching. He just wanted to go home. "I just- I lost track of time. Derek found me and he's going to take me home."

"Where are you?"

He bit back the lie that threatened to spill out, and sighed. "We're at the Ironworks, but we're leaving soon. The rest of the pack's on its way. I'm perfectly safe, Dad."

"You're perfectly safe when I say you're perfectly safe," his dad told him seriously. "If you leave before I get there you're going to be grounded."

Stiles rolled his eyes, but he agreed and hung up. Derek raised his eyebrows in a way that asked what was next, despite that Stiles knew he'd heard the entire conversation. "Guess we're waiting here."

"You deserve to be grounded," Derek replied, then made a face back when Stiles glared at him. "How's your head?"

"Buzzing," Stiles admitted. He knew what a concussion felt like, though, after that incident freshman year, and this was not it. For that, at least, he was grateful. He just wished he could remember exactly what had happened.

He watched as Derek cocked his head slightly, and they both looked toward the street as Allison's car nosed into the alley. The headlights washed over them as she turned, disappeared as she pulled to a stop in front of Derek's car. Scott tumbled out before it was even parked, and Derek had to move quickly to avoid being plowed over.

"Stiles!" Scott exclaimed.

"Scott!" Stiles answered just as enthusiastically, although he was clearly teasing his best friend.

"Where have you been?" Scott asked, poking his head into Derek's car and sniffing at Stiles as if his scent would betray him. "And what are you _wearing_? You smell like death! Dude, you're _bleeding_!"

Stiles laughed, and shoved at Scott's face until he backed out of the window. "Oh my god, let me out, ok?"

It was as Stiles opened the door that both Scott and Derek stiffened, turned the same direction at the same time. Derek was fast enough, caught the tiny object that whirred toward him; Scott was not as lucky, was an instant too late. The dart struck home just below his collarbone, and he ripped it out the second it hit. Then he shouted and dropped it at the same time Derek was opening his own bloody palm, and Stiles could see both of them were holding darts spiked with needle-sharp protrusions.

They'd been _meant_ to catch them.

Stiles didn't have to guess what was on those spikes. He knew it was the wolfsbane even before Gerard emerged from the shadows across the lot. He could smell it, feel the wave of dizziness that came with the heady scent of it. Derek wavered on his feet uncertainly.

Without any hesitation, Allison had grabbed her bow from her car and moved to stand beside Scott, bumping her shoulder to his to ask if he was ok. He was already transformed, already had his claws at the ready, his golden eyes locked on Gerard. But Stiles caught the slight sway in his stance, and it was only a moment longer before Derek stumbled backward, had to lean against the car.

The scent of it still blossomed around them, or at least it seemed like it to Stiles as he climbed out of the car despite Derek telling him to stay. Derek wasn't really in a position to give him any orders. Stiles was still a little wobbly from his knock to the head, but Derek was almost on the ground and Scott didn't look like he'd be much better for long. The werewolves were about to be useless in this fight. He and Allison would have to be able to stand against Gerard alone.

Except...

Except there were two darts, fired at exactly the same moment, he thought, mind already getting fuzzy. Which meant, he concluded fuzzily, that there was at least one other unknown person with Gerard. More than likely it was a pair of them, possibly sharpshooters. Possibly on orders to kill them if they got in the way. Possibly-

"Well," Gerard interrupted Stiles' sluggish thoughts, drawing out the word as if he had only just discovered it. Stiles blearily noted the sword in his hands and his mouth went dry with dread. Allison had hold of Scott's arm and was dragging him stumbling backward and she caught Stiles' eyes. This was not good. "This should be easier than I'd thought. No betas around to fight for you. No _mountain ash,_ " he said viciously, glaring at Scott where he'd fallen to the ground.

Stiles fumbled at his belt, because he vaguely remember he had mountain ash, but there was nothing there; no wolfsbane, no mountain ash canteen. No weapons. His garbled attention fell to the sword in Gerard's hands, and he remembered Scott telling him what Gerard had done with that sword. Gerard was not here to play nice, not if he was wielding that weapon.

"Leave them alone," Allison ordered firmly. She was the only one of them not unarmed or unhindered by the drug; she had her bow up and aimed at Gerard.

He tsked at her, pulled a look full of disapproval. "My own blood, helping _monsters_."

"They're not the monsters here," Stiles interjected, more loudly than he'd intended. Behind him Derek shuddered and groaned and Stiles had to muster up enough strength to resist the urge to turn to him.

Gerard's attention shifted, took in Stiles leaning against the car. Then he smiled, a slow, devilish thing. "Stilinski. I should thank you," he admitted in a way that wasn't nice or thankful at all. "It was good of you to bring us all together, to practically _deliver_ these two to us."

Stiles hackled at the implication that he had anything to do with the arrival of the hunters, but before he could respond Scott spoke up from the ground. "Get Derek out of here," he ordered Stiles and Allison quietly. He was struggling hard against the drug.

"No!" Allison responded instantly. "What about you?"

Scott was staring at Gerard, who was watching them with shrewd eyes, but he addressed Allison. "Derek's the one he needs."

"You think he's just going to let us walk away?" she hissed.

"Oh I won't have to," Gerard interrupted. "Derek, get up."

With a growl, Derek struggled to his feet. Once there, he seemed to be steadier, glaring at Gerard. But his eyes kept sliding sideways, falling to Stiles, an action Stiles was acutely aware of despite that Derek was behind him. Stiles scowled, shook his head in an attempt to clear the fog. It was just like at the clinic, when Deaton had dosed Derek and Stiles had somehow been affected. At this rate they were very quickly going to lose. Really, it could get embarrassing if Derek kept making that small sound at the back of his throat.

Before he could say anything the Ironworks lit up with blue and red lights as the sheriff's vehicle rounded a corner. The headlights washed out Derek's camaro's, filled the area with bright light. Stiles held up a hand to block it out a second before they dimmed.

"Stiles, thank god," the sheriff said as his door opened, as he began to cross the distance between them. He froze when Gerard stepped forward, when their eyes met. Two others emerged from behind him, flanking him defensively. "Oh. You found Gerard."

"More like Gerard found us," Stiles told him. "But, hey, he brought friends. Maybe he just wants a party?"

The sheriff eyed the long rifle, the crossbow, the sword Gerard still held. He looked over to where Allison still held her compound bow aimed at her grandfather. Without flinching he took in Scott in a pile on the ground, his son leaning heavily on the camaro, and Derek wobbling on his feet like he was drunk.

"I suspect not," he told his son.

Stiles took in the new hunters as well, realized there was only one gun between the three of them, and it wasn't the sort that shot whatever the hell Derek had caught. Which meant there were at least two more hidden snipers his dad couldn't possibly know about. He grasped at the thought, trying to focus on what to do with it now that he'd had it. No one was moving and it was just so hard to _think_.

"They're not alone," he blurted out, loudly enough that he could be sure Gerard and his hunters knew that Stiles at least was aware of them. That seemed right. Dangerous, but right. "There are two more than won't show their _coward_ faces."

"I'll show you _coward_ , boy," snarled one of the men as he stepped forward at the taunt, face twisted in anger. Gerard held up a hand to stop him even as the sheriff moved forward as well.

"Hey now," soothed the sheriff in his best _let's not be crazy_ voice. Stiles stomach twisted into a knot when he realized his father was going to try to get involved. That his expedition had now put his father into immediate danger. The thought cleared some of the fog.

"Dad, don't," he said firmly. He swallowed, trying to keep calm, trying to push away the suffocating scent of the wolfsbane. How was it so _strong_?

"It's okay, Stiles," his father told him. "We're adults, we can handle this calmly.

 _They're hunters!_ _They don't do anything calmly!_ Stiles wanted to shout at him, because his father didn't understand, because his father was going to get hurt if he put himself into the middle of this and he desperately wished he could go back in time to when his father had no clue and only showed up when there was a body. A harmless body.

"You're out of your league here, Sheriff," Gerard bit out, voice like ice. Stiles' heartbeat jumped, raced at the tone, and the werewolves both growled deeply. Gerard's attention shifted. "Oh?" he observed. "Derek, come here."

Derek took a halting step forward, so that he was beside Stiles, and Scott struggled to his feet to stop him. For a moment Stiles' breath caught at Derek's proximity, and then he mustered up the words to fight back. "Derek, stay." The words were soft, barely a murmur, and Derek _whimpered_. Stiles held out one hand and Derek grasped onto it like a lifeline. Stiles shivered at the touch, at the fire that raced over his skin.

Then Derek closed his eyes, groaning. Stiles could see the flush of his skin, knew what Derek was feeling, knew that Derek would obey him over Gerard like how it had happened at the clinic. Gerard scowled, and looked to Scott. "Bring Derek to me, Scott."

Scott shuddered, unwilling to obey, but his feet shuffled until he faced Derek. Allison let her bow fall to her side, put her free hand on his chest, giving him a confused look until she recalled the darts. "Stiles!" she exclaimed, hoping he could counteract the order like he had for Derek.

"It's got to be you," he answered thickly. "You're his mate." Derek's fingers tightened in his. Well, the cat was out of the bag now, he supposed, catching his father's look as the sheriff drew the parallel conclusion.

Allison gave him a sharp look, because she _wasn't_ his mate, she _hadn't_ accepted the bond he'd offered to her, but then Scott's hands were on her wrist and she caught his eyes. She wasn't, was she? He pressed into her hand, staggering toward Derek, and she steeled herself. "Scott, don't!" she ordered, pressing back.

He halted.

Angry, Gerard stepped closer, spoke louder. "Scott, bring Derek to me. Derek, come here. Don't listen to those _kids_."

The sheriff moved forward at the same time, but Stiles released Derek's hand and took a step forward as well, putting himself between his father and Gerard. "Dad, let us handle this, please." He was not going to let his dad get hurt, not because of him. "Don't go, Derek. You have to fight him! Don't listen to him!"

"You either, Scott!" Allison ordered. Scott's eyes were fixed upon her, confused but determined. He had better control than Derek, not quite being an alpha yet. She shouldered her bow, put both her hands on his face. "Come on, focus. Fight."

Scott snarled and turned on Gerard; her order coincided with exactly what he wanted to do, and his eyes brightened with golden color.

"Stiles," Derek choked out, the name followed by a needy noise that really had no place in this context. Stiles swallowed, trying to ignore the effect it had, the way his skin flushed with heat. Neither of them were in any sort of condition to be fighting.

"I know," he agreed. A howl in the distance broke the group's attention for a moment, drew everyone's gaze skyward as they listened. Stiles looked down first, caught Gerard's eyes. "The betas will be here soon," he said. "Your wolfsbane won't affect them. They don't have human mates."

Gerard smiled the nasty sort of smile that said he was already a step ahead, that there was pain in store for someone. "Oh, you don't think we brought only one kind? Your little _pack_ doesn't stand a chance." He raised his sword to the ready and both Scott and Derek growled low in their throats at the threat. "I will give you one more chance, Derek. Come here. Now."

Stiles was torn; he could not stand between the hunters and his father and stay between them and Derek. As long as the wolfsbane coursed through his system, Derek could not properly defend himself and Stiles was not ending this evening by watching him be sliced in half.

"Don't," he said firmly, ignoring the way Gerard turned to him, eyes narrowed. "Derek don't listen to him. Protect your pack."

Derek swallowed and with obvious effort staggered over to Scott's side. The two shared a look and then turned to face Gerard, whose face had flushed red with fury. "Cute," he told them. "This is all quite charming. Only Derek _has_ to die here, but if you all insist on continuing to refuse me, none of you will be leaving here alive."

"Hey now," the sheriff said, holding up both hands. "There's no need for that, Mr. Argent. I'm sure we can work something out."

"Sheriff, I suggest you take your boy and walk away from this while you can," Gerard replied.

"I'm not leaving as long as you're threatening the safety of my citizens," the sheriff told him firmly. "Now how about you lay down those weapons-"

"Ha!" Gerard barked out and everyone jumped. He raised the sword, pointed it at Derek and completely ignored the sheriff. "Come _here_ ," he ordered firmly.

"Derek, no!" Stiles shouted, moving forward at the same time as Derek, not really sure what he was going to do, not really thinking clearly through the haze of wolfsbane. He put both hands on Derek's chest to halt him, met his eyes. "Come on, you can fight it."

"Shut _up_ ," Gerard snarled and before anyone else had a grasp on what he was doing, he'd struck. Derek lunged forward in the same instant to stop him, but he was too slow, too late.

Stiles saw more than felt the sword as it ran through him.

Gunfire clapped out from where his father stood, loud enough to send his ears ringing even as he grasped at the blade that had pierced him. There was shouting, he thought from his father, but maybe it was everyone, and Gerard was dead before he hit the ground. At least, there were enough bullet wounds and torn flesh he thought Gerard _had_ to be dead. Derek was at Stiles' side, catching him as he stumbled forward, calling his name and Scott was there a moment later on his other side.

"He stabbed me!" Stiles exclaimed incredulously, golden-brown eyes riveted on the crimson blossoming slowly around the sword in his gut. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew it freaking _hurt_ , but it wasn't processing. Hunters didn't kill _humans_.

He looked up at Derek, like he might have an answer to what the hell just happened. Beyond Derek, he saw his father shouting at the other hunters, at the ones being flushed like game birds from the shadows by the arrival of the betas, saw one hunter stumbling backward with a long arrow in his thigh. Allison was on her phone with one hand, her other holding her bow down along her side. He thought he caught the word 'ambulance' over the roar of the betas' arrival. Nothing quite made _sense_.

"Stiles!" Scott barked, drawing his wild attention. "Stiles, _stop_!" Scott's black-veined hands were on his own, keeping him from pulling out the sword. "You have to leave it in!"

 _It's a sword!_ he thought blearily. _It's a freaking sword, Scott, it doesn't_ belong _in!_

But all that came out was a strangled, incomprehensible noise that sounded a lot like shock, and his hands were bleeding from scrabbling at the sword, or maybe that was the blood seeping out from around the edges. His knees wobbled and gave and Derek caught him, lowered him until he could sit, and he could feel the blood sticking to Derek's hands. He couldn't see them, but the cool feeling that rushed through him at the contact told him that Derek's veins would all be the same pitch color as Scott's as they both tried to help.

"Allison's called an ambulance, Stiles," Derek informed him steadily, but Stiles knew better. An ambulance wouldn't get here from the hospital quickly enough, and they'd have to get through a small hunter-werewolf war to help him. A pained yelp from one of the betas split through the ruckus from the fight and Stiles winced.

"They need help," he gasped. "You should help them." _You can't help me_.

"We're not leaving you here," Scott said stubbornly.

"Want... to bet...?" Stiles bit out, trying to shift to get more comfortable or at least sit so that his body wasn't pressing into the sword's edges quite so much. His fingers felt cold, and he knew that was a bad thing. "Scott, go help the pack. Go save your pack, _now_."

Scott's face screwed up like he would resist, but a moment later he had shoved himself to his feet. The wolfsbane was still thick in his system and Allison was too distracted to have heard the order. "Fine!" he shouted angrily. "But I'm coming back for you!"

As Scott took off for the fight, Derek shook his head at Stiles. "Don't you even dare," Derek told him before Stiles could open his mouth, fingers curling into Stiles' own. "I'm not going. I'm not leaving you." He pressed his nose to Stiles' cheek, trying to ignore the overwhelming scent of his blood. _Please not Stiles too_.

"I know," Stiles said. "I'm not leaving you either, okay?" He let his head fall back slightly, because it was getting hard to keep it raised. Derek was so _warm_ , he thought, feeling tired.

"Stiles!" Derek called, frantic. "Don't close your eyes. You said you'd stay."

Stiles dragged his eyes open again, shook his head. He could hear the faint sound of an ambulance's sirens. It took effort, but he managed to focus on the fight across from them. His dad, hunkered down beside the sheriff's SUV with Allison, Isaac laid flat on the ground. Boyd was cornered by a pair of hunters and looking like he'd been drugged. Faintly he could hear Erica's snarls, but couldn't see her.

"They're supposed to be here," he said weakly. It was so _cold_. Why was it so _cold?_

"Who?" Derek asked, and then shook him slightly because his eyes were dropping closed again. "Stiles! Who is supposed to be here?"

"They were going to help," Stiles told him, head dropping back to rest on Derek's collarbone. He was tired, and he couldn't keep his eyes open no matter how much he didn't want to hurt Derek. He didn't _want_ regret to be his last thought, but it _was_ , because he shouldn't be leaving Derek behind. He should be around to figure out everything they could have been, to show Derek that good things _do_ happen.

He should have been able to make Derek _happy_.

His gaze lolled to the side, caught Derek's pale eyes before he spoke. "I'm really sorry, Derek. I'm so sorry."

And then his world went black.

* * *

The soft sound of voices arguing trickled in from down the block. Kali leaned against the cold brick of a run down building, feeling the thump of music she wouldn't have heard if she was a human as she picked at the blood under her claws. The twins slumped across the street from her, playing some sort of game with their hands in the air that seemed to involve flailing and jabbing. She wasn't going to bother asking.

Suddenly the twins ceased their game and looked up, ears perked. Kali looked up as well, hearing the soft scuff of shoes on cement as the two remaining members of their pack ran toward them. A moment later Deucalion rounded the building's edge with Ennis hot on his heels. Both halted gracefully and Deucalion stalked the remaining distance between himself and Kali. She didn't push off of the wall, let him crowd her up against it with a cool stare.

"You let the fae girl go," he accused, voice hot with fury.

Kali raised her chin; he may have been an alpha, but so was she. "You wanted to break up the pack," she said evenly. "I saw an _opportunity_. Your twins brought me quite the prize, you know."

Lips pulling back from his sharp teeth at her brazen attitude, he snarled. "What prize?"

By then the twins had come up on either side of the two and Ethan offered a pleased smile. "An alpha-marked human. Derek's."

Deucalion turned his crimson gaze to Ethan for a moment as if to judge the accuracy of the statement. Still pinned between his thick arms, Kali smiled. "It's true, Duke. The twins delivered the girl to the Argents. I left the boy for his alpha to find." The smile turned vicious.

Eyes narrowing, Deucalion eased up some. "You think they'll find each other," he concluded.

"They already have," she told him, pointing down the street and cocking her head. "Listen."

Gunshots peppered the night air and the murmurs of conversation escalated suddenly into shouting. Deucalion hackled at the noise, turned his attention to the direction of the fighting. "They'll destroy one another," he hissed.

"I'm sure one side will have survivors," Kali said with a shrug.

Deucalion slammed his hands into the wall on either side of her head, causing her to jump, bits of crushed bricks tumbling over her chest and spattering the ground beneath their feet. "We need them _alive_ ," he snapped at her. He was already changing completely, jaws morphing, limbs lengthening, black fur sprouting.

The others followed suit, leaving Kali standing stiffly against the wall for a moment as they scaled the buildings, heading for the roof tops. She shook herself as Ennis made the leap, fell forward as she forced a full Alpha transformation. Deucalion was howling, a sound which picked up amongst the others as she raced toward them, caught up. She joined in last, adding her clarion howl to theirs for only a moment.

And then they were perched over top of the fight and she could see the Hale kid practically curled around his Marked human, the scent of the boy's blood bursting in the air. Deucalion shot her a glare as reprimand and she clenched her jaw, looked away.

"Separate them," he ordered, crouching down. "And leave the McCall kid to me."

With that, he launched himself down upon the hunters, and the pack descended.

* * *

A howl split the air as Stiles went limp in his grasp and the sound was picked up once, twice, more until the call echoed throughout the Ironworks, until the battle itself hesitated, until everyone was looking up at the hulking, red-eyed forms that crested the tops of the buildings. The group was surrounded.

_They're supposed to be here._

Derek's throat had closed, but he clutched tightly to Stiles. If he concentrated, he could still feel his heartbeat, sluggish, weak, but _still going_. "You're such an idiot," he breathed into Stiles' shoulder, almost a sob.

_They were going to help._

That was where Stiles had gone. That was the unfamiliar scent all over Stiles' clothes. The alpha pack hadn't just found him- he had gone to the wolves that were now descending upon the hunters, hoping that they would ally themselves with Derek's pack, if only briefly, if only against a greater threat, because they were next if Gerard failed with Derek. They had left him here, as bait. He'd gone to them covered in Derek's scent, and they had left him here, knowing that Derek would come for him. Knowing the hunters would follow.

But why had they _waited_? Why had they let Stiles get _hurt_?

Derek's stomach was a knot of fear as he held onto Stiles, closed himself off to the scent of his blood, shut off the part of his brain that despaired. Instead he forced himself to focus on the slow thump-thump of Stiles' heart, clinging to the knowledge that he was still alive. He couldn't lose someone he loved this much, not again. He couldn't. It would _break him_ in ways even Kate couldn't have fathomed.

Even if he thought it served him right.

He knew it was dangerous for Stiles, to get involved with him. He knew that, and he'd let it happen anyway. He'd let Stiles close, let him get under his skin, let him become someone precious to him. He had _marked him_.

It was _his fault_ that Stiles was out here in the middle of the night, trying to help the pack. It was _his fault_ for not telling Stiles to stay out of their business, for not chasing Stiles off for his own safety. It would have hurt, but Stiles would have been _safe._ Instead, it was Derek's actions that had put him into even more danger.

"You said you'd _stay_ ," he whispered brokenly, nose pressed against the back of Stiles' shoulder. It felt like he'd been the one stabbed, like someone had reached into his chest and begun to rip out all of the vital things.

"Derek!" the sheriff's voice ripped through his shell, drew his attention raggedly away from Stiles, back to the fight. He could see one of the alphas, the leader, had Scott pinned to the ground, his long jaws working as he spoke to him. The hunters had laid off his pack to face the other alphas, and they more than had their hands full.

"He's alive," he called back to the sheriff, biting back the 'barely' that threatened to spill out as the world came crashing back into existence.

The alpha leader released Scott and tipped his head back, loosing the same deep, terrible howl that had heralded their arrival. Then Scott was skidding in beside Derek as he watched the alpha pack's behavior change in response to their leader's howl, become more vicious as they chased the last of the hunters away from the area. Their snarls, their _howls_ , split the night as they scattered the enemy, gleefully turned the hunters into the hunted through the streets of downtown Beacon Hills.

"Stiles!" Scott shouted frantically, shouldering close to Derek. "Stiles! Derek, I can't- I can't hear him! I can't hear his heart! _Stiles_!"

Derek grabbed Scott's arm to calm him, though he was just as ready to fall apart. "Scott, shut up," he ordered, and Scott's mouth snapped shut. "Just be quiet. He's still with us."

Derek could smell Scott's blood, see the bullet wound in his chest, the jagged, broken arrow shaft that stuck at an odd angle from his side. Scott listened intently, brows drawn in focus when Stiles made no move to respond, and then he met Derek's eyes. "He's not..."

Derek shook his head, almost imperceptibly. He wasn't dead, but there was a lot of blood. His heartbeat was so slow, so weak. Even if the ambulance they could hear in the distance arrived that instant, it would be too late. The drive back across town was too far. There wasn't enough _time._ Derek could see in Scott's eyes that he knew it too.

"The ambulance is almost here," Allison said breathlessly as she dropped down beside them, the sheriff guarding the group with his gun still drawn in case anyone returned. Her eyes fell to where the sword pierced Stiles' gut. It didn't look good. "But... Scott..."

"No!" Scott told them both vehemently. "No! We're not going to just let him die! You have to _do something_."

That crushing feeling settled deep in Derek's chest; he remembered saying those same words to Laura years ago. He remembered how helpless he had felt. It was happening again, it was all happening again, and there was still _nothing he could do._ "I can't, Scott. I- I can't save him."

"You have to!" Scott cried, throat closing up, sending the last word to a high, frantic note. The others were gathering now that the hunters were gone, Erica and Boyd supporting a barely conscious Isaac between them. "Give him the bite! Maybe he can heal!"

Derek shook his head, unable to even speak. It wouldn't help, he knew. He'd thought of it the second he'd caught Stiles falling, the second he thought there might not be time. "Too slow," he managed.

"You have to _try_!" Scott demanded, and he was crying, begging, angry. Because Derek was the alpha, and he should be able to fix this. Because this shouldn't have happened, not to his _best friend_. "You have to!"

"It won't work!" Derek bit sharply. "Even if- Stiles would _hate me_."

"At least he'd be _alive_ to hate you!" Scott pointed out, furious, desperate to save Stiles.

Derek closed his eyes, shutting everything out while he fought for control of himself, fought to continue hearing Stiles' heart. He didn't want to face any of this, didn't want to have to explain to Scott what he couldn't even bear to accept himself. "Or it could kill him."

Scott snarled, more wolf than human. "He'll _definitely_ die if you don't!" he remarked cruelly.

Derek shoved the thought out of his mind, glared at Scott. The sirens were screaming loudly now; the ambulance was nearly there. The window of opportunity was closing fast and desperation had sunk its ugly claws deep into his chest. He didn't want to lose Stiles. He couldn't. He wasn't sure he would survive that sort of loss, not now, not after everything that had happened. The scent of Stiles' blood was overwhelming, overpowering even the scent of the wolfsbane still coursing through his system.

Stiles would _never forgive him_ if he bit him, not even to save his life.

But Scott was right.

At least Stiles would be _alive_ to hate him.

"Please," Scott said softly, and Derek hated that fucking word so much. "You have to try. It's _Stiles_."

His eyes closed, because it _was_ Stiles. Because it was Stiles' blood on his hands, on his chest, the scent so thick in the air he could hardly smell anything else. Because it was Stiles' pain coursing through his veins, turning them black. It was Stiles' heartbeat fading beat by beat from his ears, weakening beneath his fingertips.

"Please, Derek," Scott begged, barely a breath as the ambulance rounded the corner and the sirens rose to a shriek. Derek pressed his lips to the skin of Stiles' neck.

_I'm sorry, too._


	13. Chapter 13

            The chill of the morgue seeped into Derek's skin through the tiles beneath him, from the air and the plaster of the wall behind him. He was focused on just breathing steadily, his hand clasped and pressed against his forehead, his knees drawn up almost to his chest. He could smell the salt of the tear-streaks drying on his cheeks, but his stomach was still churning, still upset.

            He could still feel Stiles' blood on his hands.

            No matter how many times he had washed his hands, he could feel it, warm and cloying and terrible, sticky on his skin. It was under his nails, in his pores, coating his memory like ashes, like the worst kind of nightmare. He couldn't get the scent of it out of his head, the sharp tang of it hanging in the air around him.

            They had taken Stiles away from him. When the ambulance arrived they had pried him away from Derek and there was nothing he could do. Everything had been so loud that he couldn't hear Stiles' heart, couldn't tell if it was still beating. The sheriff's arm had been on his shoulder the same as it was over six years ago, holding him in place, grounding him as he watched the doors close, watch Stiles disappear inside the ambulance before it went screaming out of sight.

            The sheriff had driven them to the hospital, his lights flashing, his eyes so full of tears Derek wasn't sure how he stayed on the road. He had known running with wolves was dangerous for Stiles, but surely he couldn't have guessed it would be like _this_. Stiles wasn't stupid; he wouldn't get involved in things that would kill him.

            Except... except when they had reached the hospital, they hadn't been allowed near the surgery area. There was yelling, from everyone, and it was Scott's hands on his chest, Erica's firm but broken order that he get ahold of himself _right now_ that had turned him away from the doctors surrounding the Sheriff. Moving away didn't mean he couldn't hear them. The words weren't meant for him, they were meant for the Sheriff, but he heard them.

            "His heart stopped on the ride over," the doctor had told him. "The paramedics got it started, but he's lost a lot of blood, Sheriff. There's a lot of damage. It doesn't look good."

            His betas had heard it too. They had shoved him through the doors of the morgue where he had collapsed to his knees with them crowding in all around him, their need for the reassurance of contact almost tangible. Erica had wrapped herself around him and he knew that she was crying even if she didn't make a sound, even if he only knew by the minute shaking of her shoulders. Scott sat beside him, dazed, barely breathing, straining to hear anything through the thick morgue doors.

            It was a while before Boyd and Isaac joined them, coming late without a police escort. Allison showed them in, laid a hand on Isaac's shoulder. Someone had to stay with the sheriff, and she was the only human available. Isaac would have to be the one to hold Scott's hand through this, through losing his best friend.

            Isaac had curled up around Scott and Boyd had disentangled Erica from around Derek. The pack had sat on the floor of the morgue, the heat from the wolfsbane seeping out of their systems and leaving them all feeling drained. Isaac was the first to rise, helping Scott to his feet with the trembling suggestion that they see if there was anything they could do for the sheriff. The dull tone of a flatline machine invaded the room when they cracked the door to leave, silenced as the door swung shut. Boyd and Erica had crowded around him for a little while longer, but they too had disappeared, leaving him alone with his grief.

            The smell of blood had become too much for Derek. He'd shed his coat and washed his hands in the big, deep sink in the corner. He'd washed them a dozen times, scrubbing and scraping- he'd dug at his skin until his own blood ran red down the drain, until he was trying not to cry again, until he was on his knees with his forehead pressed against the cabinets beneath the sink.

            Until he was shaking, because he didn't want to lose Stiles.

            How could he have guessed how much Stiles meant to him until Stiles' blood was on his hands and in his clothes and Derek could hear his heartbeat fading away? There was no heartbeat, not here in the cold, not even when he closed his eyes and strained to hear it. Finding himself on the verge of having Stiles taken from him, he'd begun to understand what he felt for Stiles. The absence of his heartbeat had told Derek more than his presence ever could.

            Now he sat against the wall near the doors, the last traces of the wolfsbane fading from his system, and tried to work up the courage to leave.

            One of the doors wobbled open beside him, and Scott's exhausted face appeared in the crack. He stared at Derek for a moment, took a deep breath, and let it out in a sigh.

            "Come on, Derek," he said softly. "They're about to wake him up."

 

* * *

 

(Tuesday, morning)

            The darkness receded like fog rolling in and Stiles struggled through it. He was cold, still cold, as cold as he last remembered, but he was numb now as well. He could feel the pressure of something covering him, and he really hoped it was not a morgue sheet. He really did not want to be dead right now.

            Someone took his hand, or he thought someone did, and someone was talking, maybe the same someone, but it was garbled and weak. He didn't even have the strength to open his eyes; he barely had the strength to try to listen to what was going on around him. Just the talking, and that repetitive noise so faint in the background that seemed to match his heart. He could feel his pulse beneath his skin.

            _A pulse!_ he thought triumphantly. He had succeeded in having a pulse! He promised himself he would take time later to evaluate what his life had become if having a pulse was an noteworthy accomplishment.

            There was another noise, and he was pretty sure it was his name, and despite that he did his best to respond that he was alive, he was pretty sure the noise he made actually more closely resembled 'hhhenhghfllll' which wasn't really helpful.

            Slight pressure on his shoulder, then, and he realized he could distinguish between two voices now; one male and one female. Even with his eyes closed his head was spinning and his thoughts kept sliding sideways as he tried to think them. He heard his name again, and he mustered every ounce of strength he had in order to open his eyes. The light was unbearably bright, even though he knew it was dim, blocked by the silhouettes above him that were talking to him. They were making noises that didn't really amount to language, except he heard his name and he knew one of the people was his father.

            "Stiles," his father kept saying, softly, worried.

            He didn't even have the energy to flop his head to one side to look at his father. His eyes slid closed and it was more than a small struggle to re-open them. It was better the second time, less bright, and he was pretty sure that was Scott's mom looming over him with her sweet smile and gentle coaxing. He could feel one of her hands on his forearm.

            Her other hand was holding his father's hand, and Stiles had just enough consciousness to think _when did **that** happen?_ before the darkness laid claim to him once more.

 

* * *

 

(Wednesday, morning)

            The next thing he was aware of was a deep ache in his joints, webbing out from his belly in ways that were anything but pleasant. He struggled against the darkness, against the leaden-weight feeling of his eyelids. When he managed to crack them open he was terrified because it was dark, but it occurred to him that he wasn't blind, the lights were just off. A sliver of gold from the hallway sliced across the room to his left, fell over the lumpy figure in the hospital room chair. Stiles' vision was still blurred, still blackened around the edges and tilting to one side, but he was pretty sure it was his father. Sleeping.

            Sleeping...

            Sleep...

            His eyes slid closed once more.

 

* * *

 

(Wednesday, late night)

            Steady, quiet beeping.

            Heat pressed against the side of his thigh and twined between his fingers.

            There was something in his mouth, down his throat, and he thought for a moment he was choking, but it was cold and he was breathing through it, or it was breathing for him, he wasn't really sure. Something had happened, something bad. His eyes cracked open, easier this time but more crusty.

            Arms folded over the edge of the bed, forearms pressed against Stiles' leg, Derek looked back at him. He didn't speak, didn't move. The corner of his mouth twitched upward into a soft smile, but he remained so still Stiles thought he must be afraid of hurting him.

            Stiles tried to smile back, to reassure him, but the tube down his throat sort of inhibited smiling. Or talking. Or anything having to do with his face, really, except for breathing, and even then he took too deep of a breath, or maybe just a breath at the wrong time, and ended up coughing until the tube practically climbed out of his throat. His head began to spin as he stared at the device, dumbfounded, and Derek chuckled softly, squirmed a little closer up the side of the bed with the words _it's ok_ rolling off his tongue so smoothly Stiles thought it must be true.

            The door to the room popped open and both of them looked to see Ms. McCall standing in the doorway scowling at Derek. Stiles' vision slid sideways, blackening as his body tried to cope with being awake.

            "I'd better not catch you in that bed again, Mr. Hale," Stiles heard as his ability to remain conscious abandoned him.

            _Again?_

 

* * *

 

 (Thursday, afternoon)

            Sunlight woke Stiles, bright and cheerful and intrusive to his closed eyes as it fell across him from the crack in the window's curtains. The lights in the room were off, but the door was open just a few inches, letting in another stripe of light. Stiles raised one hand, rubbed his sore eyes, dragged his hand down his face and touched his throat. No tube this time, thankfully. It still hurt.

            Over the gentle, steady beat of the heart monitor, Stiles realized he could hear voices. A voice, at least- his father's voice. He closed his eyes, straining to hear.

            "-leave him alone?" his father was asking.

            "Sir, with all due respect," said another voice, and Stiles was certain it was Derek and that was a terrifying thought. "He knows so much that he won't let it go. We can't keep him away from it, none of us. The best we can hope is to protect him."

            "You did a damn fine job this time," his dad snapped harshly. "He died in that ambulance. He died on that table, Derek. That doesn't sound like protecting him to me. Would he have even been there without you two?"

            Stiles' stomach turned and he could feel his heartbeat thump painfully in his chest. _It wasn't Derek's fault_! he wanted to scream. His father _couldn't_ blame Derek, he couldn't, because Derek already blamed himself and it wasn't anyone's fault but Gerard's that Stiles was hurt. Someone had to _tell_ Derek that! Someone-

            "Mr. Stilinski, you know he won't just let us walk away from him," said another voice and this time it was Scott, and Stiles only felt worse. How could his father ask two of the most important people in his life to leave him?

            "You're going to have to try," his dad was telling them, and Stiles felt the panic rising in his throat because he should get a say in this! "He's done with all of this werewolf bullshit. If I have to ground him and put bars on the windows, or whatever, then that's what I'll do. If you can't protect him, I will."

            _If you can't protect him, I will_.

            Lydia's words, so full of protective determination. They'd gotten her hurt; they would get his father hurt. This was all going so wrong, how was this going so _wrong_?

            "But-" Scott began, cut off by Derek.

            "Yes, Sir."

            And he sounded broken, defeated, and Stiles couldn't bear it.

            He could hear the heart monitor pick up suddenly, and the shuffling of feet in the doorway as the trio invaded the room. He could hear Scott shouting for his mom, and there was something else. Someone was talking, and it was his father trying to calm him and it was Derek calling his name, and it was his own voice trying to outmatch them all by shouting _don't leave_ over and over until the world blacked out around him.

 

* * *

 

(Thursday, night)

            Stiles could feel the harsh, scraping plastic of the breathing tube again when he woke next. He vaguely remembered yelling, just before passing out. His father was going to take Scott and Derek away from him, and he couldn't let that happen. They were too important to Stiles. They had _become_ too important to Stiles for him to allow them to be taken. He had died according to what his father had said; he had _died_ so that they would not be taken from him.

            Whatever had happened, his father had not succeeded in turning at least Derek away because when Stiles opened his eyes it was to find Derek mashed up against the edge of the hospital bed, his head on one bent arm, fast asleep. He looked like Stiles felt; beaten to hell. There were dark circles under his eyes and his stubble was unusually thick, like it had been days since he shaved. Like it had been days since he'd slept.

            Stiles smiled softly, though, because the fingers of Derek's free hand were tangled in Stiles', as if he were afraid someone would be able to remove him if he were not anchored to Stiles, even in sleep. Raising his other hand, Stiles carded his fingers through Derek's unwashed hair, making it stand on end. Derek didn't even flinch, didn't wake, and Stiles knew he must truly be exhausted.

            So instead of waking him, Stiles rested his palm flat on Derek's head, soaking up the reassurance of his presence, and closed his eyes.

 

 

* * *

 

(Friday, midday)

            The smell of food, delicious, wonderful food, is what woke Stiles. He turned his head slightly, caught sight of his father with a bag of greasy, salty, amazing fast food, the cheeseburger in his hand halfway to his mouth. Stiles smiled, just a little, because he knew his dad must be stressed completely out to order anything like that and eat it in front of Stiles, even if Stiles felt like he was becoming an on-again, off-again coma patient.

            "Oh my god, I can't leave you alone for five minutes or you start sneaking junk food," Stiles croaked weakly. His dad's attention snapped from the quietly playing TV down to him on the first word and he was standing beside the bed by the time he finished speaking.

            "Five minutes?" his dad said softly. "Try four days, kiddo. How are you feeling?"

            "I don't know," he said honestly. "Have there been ferrets playing in my guts? That's sort of how I feel."

            His dad mustered a small smile. "No ferrets," he informed his son. "But plenty of doctors. They thought..."

            "I'm okay," Stiles said immediately, because he knew what his father was going to say, because he didn't want to hear him say it out loud. Like somehow that would make it more real, hearing his father say _to him_ that he had died. That he'd almost died forever and left his father behind. "Dad, I'm fine."

            His dad's eyes closed, and Stiles' stomach sank. That wasn't the 'okay' face. When his father nodded Stiles couldn't tell if it was because he was agreeing or because he was fighting off tears. "You're not out of the woods yet," he said finally. "The doctors had to take a few inches of intestine out because there was too much damage. You know why gut wounds are dangerous."

            "Infection," Stiles said, without hesitation. "Septic infection."

            His father nodded again, this time in agreement. "They have you on some very strong antibiotics," he said. "Nothing they're doing is affecting the wounds on your shoulder..."

            "It won't," Stiles said, fending off the thick feeling of terror threatening to strangle him. Sepsis was serious, very, very serious. "It's from an alpha werewolf. Even werewolves don't heal those ones fast."

            "It's infected," his father said, pulling at the collar of Stiles' hospital gown to see the bandage over the wounds. It was soaked through with blood and yellowish clotting agents. "You've had a fever for days now.  They've been fighting it tooth and nail. They don't know what else to do."

            "Maybe nothing," Stiles said softly. He didn't want to say that to his father, didn't want to suggest that even though he had been saved from his sword wound, he may not be walking out of the hospital again.

            "Don't say that," his father told him. "It might take a while, but you're not giving up. No one else has given up on you."

            "Yeah? Where are they?" Stiles asked, suddenly feeling tired, exhausted. The room was empty save for his father, which was a blessing. He didn't want to talk about the things his father had just told him, especially not with his friends. Not in front of Derek.

            His father rubbed the back of his neck guiltily, glancing toward the door. "Most of them are at school for exams. They've been turning up in the evenings. Derek is here... he's always here."

            "You tried to make him leave," Stiles said, remembering. It was fuzzy, like a dream, and not getting clearer.

            His dad looked down, though, and Stiles knew it wasn't a dream. His father had tried to chase Scott and Derek out of his life. Permanently. Sighing, his father gathered himself up and lifted his chin against judgment. "I guess I didn't realize how important they were to you, even if..." He motioned to around them, as if to encompass all of the things which had lead Stiles to this hospital room.

            Stiles forced himself to smile, worked open his hand so that his father could wrap both hands around it. "It's dangerous, Dad. People get hurt. We get hurt. But I don't want out of it, okay?" He raised his other hand, tapped his shoulder where his dad's badge resided. "Guess the apple didn't fall far from the tree."

            His father smiled weakly at the joke, stroked a hand over Stiles' head because he was looking tired again. "You know, Derek told me that they'd considered... that he was going to give you the bite. To save you. You'd have been really stuck with them then."

            Stiles struggled against the exhaustion that was threatening him, taken aback by the idea, because it seemed both extreme and unlikely to work. That they had considered it at all told Stiles how dire the situation had actually been. "But they didn't... right? I certainly don't feel like a werewolf..."

            "You're not," his dad assured him with a strange look. "I- I stopped him." The admission seemed to take a lot out of his father, his shoulders sagging, his eyes closing as his brows knit. It couldn't have been an easy decision.

            "Why?" Stiles asked softly.

            His dad met his eyes, seemed to be weighing his indecision. Finally he swallowed, took a short breath. "Because... you didn't ask," he said at last. "You thought you weren't going to make it, and you didn't ask. You didn't want it."

            Stiles put his head back against the horrible little hospital pillow and cracked a sad smile. "No, I didn't," he agreed, darkness threatening the edges of his vision. "Derek would never have forgiven himself if I'd died anyway."

            He felt more than saw the hand his father stroked over his buzzed hair. It was the last thing he felt before the darkness claimed him.

 

 

* * *

 

(Saturday, morning)

            "Stiles?" asked a familiar voice just as the darkness became less oppressive, as he became aware of his surroundings once again. He hadn't opened his eyes, but the beep of the heart monitor had increased just a tiny bit.

            He mumbled something and cracked open his eyes. Scott was looming over him, so he closed his eyes again because that was a slightly intimidating sight to wake up to right away. "Dad?" he managed weakly.

            "No, I'm Scott," his friend told him seriously.

            "Oh my god..." Stiles somehow mustered the strength to roll his eyes. "I meant where is he," he clarified.

            "Oh," Scott said. "Uh, he's at work. It's been a few days. You missed exams."

            "I didn't _miss_ them," Stiles huffed with a smile. Scott brightened at seeing Stiles joking. "Derek?"

            Scott scoffed, rolling his eyes with a shake of his head. "My mom kicked him out of the hospital because he wouldn't stay out of the bed. He can come back this afternoon."

            "Everyone else?" Stiles wished his throat didn't feel so _raw_.

            "They're fine. Lydia stayed with Allison for a couple days, and she found a tracking device in one of Allison's shoes. Gerard," he clarified, as if Stiles hadn't guessed. "Who, by the way, is gone."

            "My dad shot him," Stiles mumbled. That seemed to be what he remembered a moment after being stabbed; lots of gunfire.

            "Yeah, but..." Scott trailed off and gave a guilty shrug. "Like, Boyd went back to check for a body. There were two other hunters, but not Gerard. And there were _drag marks_."

            Stiles rolled his head, look at  Scott with wide eyes. "Like, someone _took_ him?"

            "Peter thinks it was the alpha pack," Scott told him, but it was clear how much he thought of that idea. "Derek thinks he retained some form of supernatural healing that let him wander off."

            "Either way, we lost," Stiles concluded.

            "Yeah," Scott said heavily. "We could have lost a lot more..."

            Stiles winced. He had expected a guilt trip, but the soft concern in Scott's voice sunk deep claws into his chest. "I'm sorry," he murmured.

            "...You know," Scott said after a long, awkward pause. "I asked Derek to give you the bite. To save you."

            "He didn't," Stiles said, vaguely recalling that conversation. "My dad stopped him."

            "Yeah," Scott agreed. "He said you'd hate him. He thought you'd rather die."

            Stiles couldn't meet Scott's eyes. "It wouldn't have worked anyway," he said instead of answering Scott's unasked question. Despite the many, many, _many_ hours he had spent thinking about that choice, he still wasn't sure what he thought. Become a werewolf? Retain his humanity? Scott's choice had been taken from him. Stiles was glad he still had one.

            Scott gave him a hard stare until he finally looked over. "You'd rather live," he said firmly. It was a question, sort of, or at least asking for confirmation of what he believed.

            Stiles didn't answer. His mind was still fuzzy and he was doing his best to fight off the darkness. He needed to talk, needed to hear Scott talking. "It wouldn't..." he mumbled, trailing off. "Maybe once you're an alpha. I'd take a bite from you."

            Confused, Scott tilted his head. "Not Derek? You wouldn't be in his pack?"

            "And miss out on all the trouble you get into?" Stiles huffed, almost a chuckle. His throat hurt, felt raw. He hadn't really spoken in days.

            Scott snorted. "I'm sorry, the trouble _who_ gets into?" he asked, one brow cocked. He indicated the room around them. "I think you're perfectly capable of getting into enough trouble all on your own."

            Looking around the little hospital room, Stiles gave a very slight shrug and settled back against the flimsy headboard. "Ok, well this was unfortunate..."

            "Unfortunate?" Scott echoed incredulously. "Unfortunate. You almost- no, you know what, you _did_ die. Twice. You _died_ , Stiles."

            "I'm still here," Stiles pointed out, even though guilt was clawing at his insides at the reminder.

            "Yeah, and you can thank Derek for that the next time you see him," Scott told him. "Peter says he did something that kept you alive. Barely." Then he softened, slumped forward so he could fold his arms on the edge of the bed, press his elbows against Stiles' side gently. "Dude, just... promise me you won't do anything this stupid ever again. I can't lose you, Stiles. Your _dad_ can't lose you. He's been a wreck."

            Stiles closed his eyes, because they felt heavy, because everything felt heavy knowing that his father had gotten hurt anyway. "I'm sorry, okay?" he said softly.

            "I know," Scott said. "I'm sorry too. You shouldn't have gotten hurt."

            "Hey Scott," Stiles said, knowing he wasn't going to open his eyes again for a bit, not with the way his body responded to having closed eyes. It wanted to go back to sleep, to hide from the exhaustion, try to heal itself without having to put up with all the stress of wakefulness.

            "Yeah?" Scott asked, leaning over closer with his head tilted just so.

            He smiled. "Being Batman kind of sucks," he mumbled, and let the world fade away again.


	14. Chapter 14

(Saturday, Late Night)

            When Stiles next woke, it was slow but it was clear, and the world just stayed in one place like it was supposed to do. He spent a minute just listening to the heart monitor beeping quietly beside him, feeling his pulse against the pad of the clip on his finger. He could smell the blood on his shoulder, the slightly sick, sweet smell of infection even through the bandaging. His stomach was tight, cranky and grinding itself into knots, but at least he didn't feel _sick_ with it.

            The soft _shff_ of a page of paper turning twitched his attention sideways. His head lolled to the right and he laid eyes on the figure seated in the uncomfortable hospital chair. It was night out and not even the hallway was anything but dimly lit. Still, Stiles could see the way he sat with one leg crossed over the other at the ankle, a book laid open across one hand, the fingers of his other resting just so against his lips. He was reading intently, so intently he didn't seem to notice Stiles was awake.

            "Peter," Stiles croaked, voice hoarse with sleep. He still felt exhausted.

            "Stiles," Peter replied with exactly the same flat inflection, without even looking up. He'd known Stiles was awake, obviously- had probably heard his heartbeat pick up slightly. Slowly he blinked, and then looked up, met Stiles' gaze. "You're dying."

            A scratchy huff of laughter escaped Stiles, because he just said it so _deadpan_ , like any other normal person in the entire freaking world might have said 'you're awake.'

            "It's nice to see you, too," he returned. When Peter just kept staring at him, he rolled his eyes and heaved as big of a sigh as he could manage. "Look, I know, okay?"

            Head tilting, Peter gave him an intrigued look. "You know?"

            Stiles dropped his gaze, rolled his head slightly, back to center. "Yeah. My dad said... he said that they're fighting an infection, and that's why it's taking so long." He glanced over and Peter's expression told him he was exactly right. "But it's not from the sword, is it... it's from that alpha. And it's not going to get better."

            Peter's eyebrows rose. "You're unusually accepting of your mortality."

            Stiles snorted. "Did you- My dad knows something is up. Does Derek know? Does Scott?"

            Peter shook his head, and then set his book to the side. Taking a deep breath, as if steeling himself, he got to his feet and moved to the edge of the bed. When he raised his hand Stiles flinched slightly and Peter paused, waiting. For a moment they regarded one another silently, and then Peter continued his previous motion, reaching to pull down the collar of the hospital gown. Beneath it lay a long gauze, taped to Stiles' skin, a bandage which Peter peeled back to reveal the three infected, jagged claw punctures, over the top of the mark Derek had left. Something Stiles at first didn't recognize flitted across Peter's features. When Peter looked up again, met his eyes, he understood what it was, why he hadn't recognized it.

            He had never seen regret on Peter before.

            "Do you know what that mark is?" Peter asked softly.

            "She called it an alpha-mark," Stiles replied, though it was clear he had no idea what that meant.

            Peter nodded, because he had expected as much. "It's a declaration to other alphas that the human bearer belongs to someone else. Do you know what else it can do?"

            "Magic?" Stiles guessed. He really wished Peter would just tell him whatever he wanted Stiles to know; guessing was tiring.

            Peter gave him a look. "It kept your heart beating." He gave a shrug that was half a wince. "Well, mostly. It's supposed to keep you alive until you accept or reject the bond it offers."

           "It's not working right," Stiles concluded. He looked down at the angry red flesh around the wounds. It smelled awful.

            "No, it's not," Peter agreed. "Kali damaged it. She's challenged Derek's right to mark you. If Derek doesn't answer soon, the infection will reach your heart. It _will_ kill you."

           "Just like that? Don't I get a say in any of this?" Stiles asked, so exhausted he wasn't even up to accusations or blame. "Can't I just... reject it? Couldn't Derek redo it?"

            Peter gave an indulgent smile. "If you want to die faster. Rejecting it won't cure the infection, and you can't accept it until the challenge is answered. Until Derek wins."

            "And if he loses?" Stiles murmured. "Is it a fight to the death?"

            At that, Peter smiled sadly. "It doesn't have to be. She could surrender."

            "She won't," Stiles said softly.

            "No, she won't," Peter agreed. He smoothed a thumb over the infected wound, eyes tracing the mark. Then he covered it with the bandage, tugging up the fabric so it was out of sight, and picked up a tray from the beside cabinet. On it were particularly bland looking foods Stiles barely recognized, and Peter placed it on his lap. "Try to eat," he said before returning to his post in the chair.

            Stiles watched him for a moment and then lay back and closed his eyes, letting all of the new information sink in. He began sorting it with what he already knew, and was sort of waiting for the darkness to come back for him, but after a little bit he realized he was actually conscious. He began to poke at the food, disgusted by how it jiggled back into form.

            "So do we just like- would we be mates or something?" he burst out, and Peter looked up to find Stiles glaring hard at the pale green gelatin on his tray. "Was he going to give me a choice?"

            Peter looked back down at his book, but it didn't have an answer, and he sighed. "Being _mates_ is something which happens up here," he said, tapping his head with one finger. "And it's just a choice. What you're being offered here," he said, laying the tips of all his fingers over his heart. "Is a bond which helps you to get closer. Be more wolf, without changing. As you are, he cannot share memories without breaking skin, for example."

            "Oh," Stiles said, the upset knotting his stomach relaxing. He glanced over to find Peter regarding him with a strange sort of look, like he was trying to puzzle out something. He looked hurt, and that made Stiles uncomfortable, so he just let it drop, picked up the plastic spoon on the edge of the tray. Really, the food wasn't that bad, he thought. Tasteless, textureless, room temperature, but Stiles was starving and after the first bite it didn't really matter.

            When he was finished, Peter still hadn't left and no one else had arrived. It was strange, and a little terrifying, because Stiles couldn't fathom why he would be left alone with him for so long. Everyone knew that he was a wild card. Even his father. Even Melissa. But he was sitting there quietly reading, not even watching Stiles any more, and it seemed oddly as if he almost... cared. The thought sent a chill down Stiles' spine.

            "Why are you even helping?" he asked suddenly.

            Peter looked up from his book and regarded him with a calm sort of collection and the craziest part was how _not crazy_ it felt to Stiles in that moment. It felt _safe_ , like if anyone came through that door to hurt him Peter just wouldn't let them, and it was unnerving. It was the look on Peter's face, like he was actually taking a break from being sneaky, like he was actually here out of concern.

            "You... remind me of someone I lost," he said quietly, and then turned back to his book as if he hadn't just made a declaration that set Stiles' paradigm on its side.

            "Who was it?" he asked after a moment, when his mouth was working again.

            Peter didn't even look up. Stiles watched him for a little, then picked at the remains of the food on the tray, scraping the bottoms with the edge of the spoon to fill the silence. Curiosity was eating Stiles alive, but Peter just kept on reading and Stiles knew that he shouldn't press the issue but...

            "I lost my mom when I was ten," he admitted to the silence. It hurt, and he suspected it would never really stop hurting to say those words, but it was the sort of hurt he thought Peter might understand.

            Peter sighed and snapped his book shut as he looked up at Stiles, and that seemed more like the Peter that Stiles knew. For a moment Stiles thought that he would just get up and leave. Then he was shaking his head just enough to accent his eye roll, and his next words didn't surprise Stiles as much as he had thought they might.

            "There is a reason I know so much about that mark," he said.

            Stiles swallowed, because that tone of voice spoke volumes about loss. He didn't have to guess hard. "You marked a human?"

            "I did," Peter concurred, and it was almost defensive. "And it was challenged, just like yours."

            "You had to fight for her," Stiles concluded.

            Peter snorted, almost a scoff. Stiles was immediately sorry he asked. "I lost," he said, and he met Stiles' gaze. "To Derek's mother."

            Stiles' eyes widened, the beep of his heart on the monitor speeding up. Peter had marked Derek's _father_? "But you weren't an alpha..." he breathed. "Were you?"

            Another eye roll, though it was tame. "I was, once before. But, my sister won the challenge against my mark, and then challenged me again for alpha." A strange smile touched his lips, the light of sanity dimming just-so in his eyes. "She was very angry after I turned Tom."

            "Angry enough to beat you and take your place?" Stiles said.

            Peter shrugged, smile not faltering. "She had help. As did Derek, if I recall," he reminded Stiles with a pointed look.

            "You were out of your mind," Stiles told him evenly. Like an excuse he knew wasn't good enough. Like maybe Peter wasn't anymore.

            The moment the words were out of his mouth, Stiles regretted them as Peter got to his feet. He shrank back against the horrible little hospital pillows, but Peter merely tucked his book under his arm and took a steadying breath. He looked as if there were something more he wanted to say, but he just shook his head and moved for the door.

            When he reached it, he lay one hand along the smooth frame and without looking back said: "I may have deserved what I got, back then. Derek doesn't."

            "Does that mean you're going to help?" Stiles asked quietly. Exhaustion was creeping up on him again, dragging at his eyelids.

            Peter just smiled and disappeared around the corner.

           

* * *

 

(Sunday, Afternoon)

            When Stiles woke in the morning he was groggy, unable to focus again. Hunger gnawed at his insides much worse than the night before, but it was not what had woken him. The gentle, repetitive pressure near his ankles was maddeningly irregular and the soft, breathy voices scratched around inside his head. Blearily he dragged his eyes open, worked to focus on the two figures, one on either side of his feet. After a moment of watching them he realized that his ankles were covered in playing cards.

            "I'm not a card table," he told them, voice scratchy.

            They both looked over without much surprise, as both of them had heard his heartbeat change. Derek folded his hand of cards and laid them on the edge of the bed and Scott just tossed his down, surrendering the game to Derek. The stillness with which they both held themselves sat like a rock in Stiles' stomach, cold and full of fear. He knew how good their sense of smell was and even if it wasn't, Stiles could smell the rot at the edges of his wounds.

            "How're you feeling?" Scott asked tentatively.

            "I'd be feeling a lot better if the two of you would stop looking at me like I'm already dead," Stiles told them sharply. The effect was lost somewhat when he coughed.

            Derek looked crestfallen at the words. "You're not dead, Stiles," he replied softly. "They're still working on it. There's still time."

            Stiles' brow furrowed. "The doctors?"

            "Yeah," Scott piped up as he began to brush the cards into a rough stack. "They're trying different antibiotics. Stronger ones. They'll get it."

            He just stared, because there was no way that they didn't know what was going on, that Peter hadn't told them... was there? "But it's... it's not that sort of infection," he said carefully. "Right?"

            Both boys turned their attention directly to him and he shrank back a little under the weight of it. "What do you mean?" Derek asked, enunciating very clearly in his best _you'd better tell me what the hell is going on_ voice.

            Instead of telling them, Stiles tilted his head a little and pulled down the edge of the hospital gown and picked at the tape around the edges of the bandage. He peeled back the pad of gauze to reveal the ugly, blackening marks on his shoulder. Both wolves gasped and Stiles _knew_ they hadn't known at all. He scowled, covered it back up self consciously before Derek could get his hands on it.

            "Stiles-" Derek began, but Stiles grabbed at his hands, shifted away from him.

            "Don't touch it, please," Stiles requested as levelly as he could. Derek's hands went slack in his and Stiles could hardly bear to look at the guilt in the werewolf's pale eyes.

            "It's not healing," Scott observed, mystified.

            "Thank you, Captain Obvious," Stiles said with a small roll of his eyes. He didn't want to let go of Derek's warm hands, but he did. He wasn't sure Derek wasn't going to climb into the bed next to him, but he let go. "Kali damaged your mark," he told Derek, catching his attention. "Peter says it's a challenge to your right to mark me."

            "Mark you!" Scott said, and Derek just looked over at him because Scott really had no room to talk here. "When did you- Stiles, did you- What do you mean a challenge?" Fear crept into his voice at the last. Stiles wondered if Scott was even able to give this sort of mark to Allison.

           "It's rare," Derek said. "Sometimes another alpha or even a beta, will challenge having a human brought into the pack. But this... it shouldn't look like this. It shouldn't be _infected_ like this."

            "Okay, 'shouldn't be' is all well and good," Stiles told him. "But it is. And Peter says you're going to have to answer the challenge."

            Derek and Scott exchanged a look that gave Stiles the sick feeling that he'd been left out of important conversations. "Peter told us that much," Scott said reluctantly. "But we didn't know it was infected like that... we have to do something _soon_. We've been trying to figure out how. We can't go walking into a pack of alpha werewolves and expect they'll just... let Derek fight her, you know? "

            Stiles swallowed, because he hadn't really considered that before. Of course they weren't going to catch Kali on her own; she would stick close to the other alphas so that her plan carried through. So that Derek wouldn't be able to face off against her on her own, would be lured away to the entire alpha pack if he tried to find her. So that they would have to involve the whole pack if they wanted to save Stiles.

            "You're right," he said tiredly at last.

            "I wish we weren't," Scott offered, as if it would be of any help. "You don't look so hot, man."

            "I don't feel so hot," Stiles confirmed. He felt worse than not okay, if he was being honest. He was burning up, and he knew he was because even Derek's hands on his shins felt cool. His stomach was turning on itself and there was a thick, muggy feeling in his head like trying to think through gelatin. The antibiotics were obviously not helping as much as they had been before, if they were working at all, and he knew he was losing time. "Do you think you can lure her away from the pack?"

            "Unlikely," Derek answered. "She'll know we're looking for her now. I've been out a few times trying to track her down. I have a good idea of where they are, but they're not moving at all. They're not leaving anyone by themselves."

            "We could all go," Scott pointed out. "We'd have a better chance if you brought all of us. Even Peter. Maybe Allison and-"

            "No," Derek said sharply. "I'm not endangering the pack, and I'm not bringing hunters into it."

            "They could help," Scott told him firmly. "Or do you want Stiles to die?"

            Derek _flinched_ and Stiles clucked his tongue to save him from having to answer. "I'm not dying, okay? We'll figure this out. We've dealt with worse. At least it's not a pack full of kanimas, right?"

            Both Derek and Scott just sat there for a moment, staring at him, and Stiles could almost hear them desperately trying not to think about him dying. To not think about what they were going to have to face to save him. What they were going to have to face _without him_ this time. He could tell Scott was angry, and he could practically hear every 'it should have been me' and 'I should be able to fix this' comment running through his mind. Derek just looked... broken. Like Stiles had already left.

            "Oh my god, you two. Seriously, this isn't helping," he told them and rolled his eyes when they both looked down guiltily. "Look, just- just go find Peter, and talk to him. He's the wiliest bastard we know; maybe he can come up with a way to fix this."

            There was a knock on the door and one of the nurses popped her head into the room. "Oh, you're awake!" she exclaimed when she saw Stiles sitting. Then she gave a stern stare to the other two. "You're not disturbing him are you?"

            "No, ma'am," Scott answered. "We were just leaving, in fact." He looked to Stiles, gave him a lopsided smile. "We'll be back, okay? And we're gonna beat this."

            Stiles smiled back, nodded once. Scott skirted around the nurse still standing in the doorway, but Derek moved closer, braced himself on the edge of the bed. He caught Stiles' gaze, traced the lines of his face with his eyes, and then leaned forward to press his lips to Stiles. It was quick, but Stiles returned it before Derek pulled back.

            "It's not goodbye," Stiles told him seriously.

            "I know," he said, giving a hesitant smile. "I'm just glad you're still with us. I'm going to keep it that way."

            Stiles held out his hand, gave Derek's a little squeeze before releasing him. The nurse cleared her throat and Derek rolled his eyes at Stiles before exiting the room as well. She moved to replace him at Stiles' side, fiddling with the bags and tubes connected to Stiles. Something cool flooded his veins and he laid his head back once more.

 

* * *

 

 

            Derek stepped out of the hospital room, pulling the door gently closed behind him. Scott stood leaned against the wall to his left, arms folded, brow furrowed and a frown turning the edges of his lips. Sighing, Derek moved to the other side of the doorframe, leaned against the wall, and let his head drop back with a clunk. Everything was a mess and all he could smell was the infection in Stiles' body, even outside of the room. It was cloying and horrible and he wanted nothing more than to rid himself of it.

            "What are we going to do?" Scott asked, subdued. He was just staring into the blank space in front of him, looking very much like he was unable to process any of this. Derek couldn't blame him; Scott had known Stiles for much longer than Derek, was closer to him on a lot of levels. Being unable to do anything to save him was probably tearing him apart inside.

            "I'll have to find her," Derek said plainly. "Fight her. Maybe kill her."

           "She'll beat you," Scott told him, like it was just truth, like he'd just accepted it. Like there was nothing they could do. Like he had resigned himself to losing his best friend. "If she doesn't, Deucalion will."

            Derek didn't bother responding. Scott was right, of course. The two alpha werewolves were stronger than Derek. Older. They had been alphas much longer than Derek, knew more about their deep-rooted powers than Derek did of his own fledgling abilities. So instead he closed his eyes, took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

            "What did Deucalion say to you, Scott?" he asked, barely above a whisper. "During the fight."

            Scott glanced over, finally focusing on something, passively focusing on Derek. Just when it seemed he wasn't going to answer, he looked away, looked up to the ceiling. "He... he said it was your fault Stiles got hurt."

            It was Derek's turn to look over, examine the set of Scott's jaw, like he was still biting back the words he really wanted to say. "Do you think it's true?" It was a question he didn't really want the answer to, but it was an answer he desperately needed.

            Scott clenched his jaw for a moment, then shrugged one shoulder. "I think you didn't set the trap," he said evenly. "I think you weren't the one holding the sword."

            "That's not an answer," Derek told him.

            A small huff escaped Scott at that. "You're the reason his heart kept beating. Is that enough?" He looked over and Derek looked away, unable to hold that gaze. He needed to know if Scott blamed him, if he should blame himself as well.

            "You tell me," he responded. "Is it?"

            "...It's enough," Scott told him.

            Derek nodded and shoved himself lightly away from the wall. "I'm going to fix this," he swore, voice low and steely. "I'm going to find her, and I'm going to tear her to pieces if I have to. Whatever it takes to save Stiles."

            "You can't go alone," Scott told him, fight fresh in his tone. He wanted to help.

            "Obviously they want me to come to them," Derek argued. "I don't have to take Stiles - or anyone else for that matter - down with me. Win or lose... it should heal."

            "Yeah, that's a great plan, Derek," Scott snapped sarcastically. "And when Stiles wakes up, shall I just tell him you dashed off to your death and left him here alone? I'm sure he'll be thrilled after everything he's done to keep your ass alive."

            Derek snarled, eyes red, teeth long, and slammed his hands into the wall on either side of Scott's head. Scott didn't flinch, returning the snarl, his own eyes lighting up with an orange that bordered on red. Heart thrumming like a hummingbird, Scott held his ground, kept his arms pinned behind him so he wouldn't claw at the furious alpha crowding his space.

            After a moment, Derek calmed, took a shuddering breath. He wasn't thinking clearly. Scott was right, and he knew that, but he couldn't wrap his head around doing nothing. Sitting by and watching Stiles get sicker; maybe so sick that there would be nothing they could do. He couldn't watch Stiles _die_. Not again.

            "I'm going after Kali," Derek told Scott, eyes a clear blue once more. "I'm going to find her, and I'm going to challenge her outright. I don't care if she's older, I don't care if she's stronger or faster. I'm going to rip her fucking throat out for hurting him."

            It was on the tip of Scott's tongue to protest, but he could see the fire in Derek's eyes, hear the determination in Derek's voice, and there was a part of him that believed what Derek said. He was beyond furious, beyond sense. His pack had been threatened. If it had been Allison, Scott would already have been gone, odds be damned. So he just shut his mouth, dropped his gaze, and listened as Derek pushed away from the wall, stalked off down the deserted hospital hallway.

            With a sigh, Scott slid down the wall, drawing his knees up to put his elbows on, face falling into his hands. He listened to Derek's progress through the hospital, listened to him exit, listened to the click of the car door and the roar of the camaro's engine as he peeled out of the parking lot. There was a good chance he wouldn't come back, Scott knew. A part of him didn't want him to. A part of him blamed Derek for what had happened to Stiles.

            But a part of him whispered that it wasn't _Derek's_ fault.

            Stiles wouldn't have gotten involved in any of this if Scott hadn't been bit. He wouldn't stay involved in such a dangerous lifestyle if Scott wasn't his best friend. If Scott didn't need the help. If Scott had distanced himself from Stiles, perhaps he wouldn't be laying in the hospital dying of werewolf inflicted wounds. If Scott had been half as proactive about protecting Stiles as Stiles was about protecting him... maybe if he'd just listened...

            Maybe Stiles' father had been right.

            Maybe it _was_ his fault.

            The heavy clunk of boots in the hall a few minutes later pulled Scott from his miserable downward spiral in time to see Allison round the corner with Peter's arm grasped firmly in her slim hand. She was scowling and Scott leapt to his feet in surprise to greet them. Peter looked nonplussed to have been caught.

            "Look who I found wandering the hospital," Allison spat. When she released Peter it was more of a shove in Scott's general direction and Peter looked to be thoroughly tolerating it with an air that said this was really all beneath him. He returned the look Scott shot him with a shrug, and then looked around in confusion.

            "Where's Derek?" Peter asked, choosing to ignore Allison's anger.

            "He left," Scott said offhand, looking past Peter to Allison, who was nearly livid.

            "You can't just go poking your head into kids' rooms, Peter. You're not even supposed to be here," she hissed at him angrily. "What were you doing?"

            "Left where?" he asked instead of answering her.

            "She's right," Scott told him. "My mom could get in serious trouble if-"

            "Scott!" Peter interrupted in a tone that caused both teens to draw back, surprised. "This whole hallway reeks of fear and anger. Where did Derek go?"

            Scott rolled his eyes, but resigned himself. "Stiles told us what's going on with his infection - which _you_ should have told us, Peter - and so Derek's gone off hunting alphas. By himself, like an idiot."

            "He went after the _alphas_?" Peter asked sharply. " _Alone_."

            "That's what I said," Scott confirmed, with a testy look to Allison, who only pursed her lips.

            "They'll rip him to shreds," Peter said matter-of-factly.

            "Yeah, well he was pretty pissed," Scott told him, sliding in front of him as Peter made a move to enter Stiles' room. "Where do you think you're going?"

            "Move," Peter ordered, low, dangerous. There was no hint of sarcasm, only open, blatant threat.

            "Or you'll what?" Scott asked, just barely keeping his claws in. "Kill me?"

            Peter's eyes flashed and a low growl clipped from his chest before he could arrest it. "Do you want your friends to die?" he asked, as levelly as possible. "Because that's what is going to happen to both of them if you don't let me past. Derek's going to do something that's going to get Stiles killed. Maybe himself as well."

            Scott's brow furrowed. "What do you-"

            Annoyance roughed the back of Peter's throat as he rolled his eyes, pushed past Scott, who let himself be removed from the doorway with the threat of death. "Derek's gone to fight Kali," Peter told them as Allison and Scott both trailed him into the room. Stiles was fast asleep in the bed. Scott guessed the nurse had left while he was wallowing. "If he loses, then he's dead. If he wins, then Kali's dead. Either way, the blood's not fresh if one of them dies away from Stiles."

            "Blood?" Allison echoed. She was not caught up on the conversation, was stuck trying to piece together what was going on. "What blood?"

            Peter scowled at the mess of machines to which Stiles was hooked, and then began tugging off cords, beginning with the heart monitor on his finger. The cardiac monitor flatlined, the tone droning out into the hallway. It visibly bothered Scott and Allison, but did not deter Peter in the least from continuing to unhook Stiles.

            "The wound on his shoulder, the one that is killing him," he told them as he worked. He could hear the call being made far down the hall, the one that would bring nurses running. "It has to be treated with the blood of the defeated. The fresh, living blood of the defeated."

            "How does that even make sense! Stop. Peter, _stop_ ," Scott said reaching to stop him as Peter unhooked the last of the machines and began to dig under Stiles to lift him from the bed. "It's a fight to the death right? So it's always dead blood."

            "There's a few minutes window," Peter said, hands splayed on the edge of the bed as he stared at Scott. "A window which we will absolutely miss if we don't catch up with my errant nephew immediately."

            Stiles stirred at the raised tone, groaned as he opened his eyes. He was out of it still, eyes red, drugs thick in his system. "Scott?" he asked.

            "Yeah, I'm here, Stiles," Scott assured him immediately, glaring at Peter. "Peter is trying to move you. He says Derek's going to get you both killed."

            Eyes still closed, Stiles' brow furrowed as he tried to make sense of that. At the same moment the doorway filled with a pair of breathless nurses and their crash cart. Everyone went silent as the two groups regarded one another over the sound of the flatline, until Allison pushed past Peter and unplugged it from the wall.

            "We can't move him," she said firmly.

            Peter didn't answer, simply stared at Melissa where she stood in the doorway and waited. Scott looked between them; it had been a rough meeting when Peter had turned up at the hospital the first night. Scott had already told his mother who Peter was, when he explained everything else, but she was not ready to deal with him turning up in her life. Not that any of them were ready to have Peter turn up in their lives again, but especially not her.

            "You're not taking him out of here," Melissa said levelly.

            "He'll die," Peter told her. There was no malice, no force, just simple truth. "If we don't move him, if we don't take him to Derek, the infection will kill him."

           "He's telling the truth," Scott announced, because he was the only one who could hear Peter's even, steady heartbeat. It pained him to say it, but Peter actually believed that Stiles would die if they didn't take him out of the hospital, take him to wherever Derek had gone. He turned to look at his mother. "We- we have to take him."

            "Scott!" Allison cried in disbelief.

            "Allison, I can hear he's telling the truth okay?" Scott told her. "We have to get him to Derek before it's too late."

            "And if you make it?" she asked, tone full of barbs. "If you make it and you have to face a pack of alphas to save him?"

            Scott took a deep breath, because she was right, and because he wasn't Derek. Because this was Stiles, and he needed all of them to be thinking for him this time. "You're right," he assured Allison. "Look... call your father. Have him meet us at the south entrance to the preserve as soon as he can. I'll call the others. Convince Lydia to bring Jackson, okay? Just... get everyone."

            Though Allison frowned, she pulled out her phone as she headed out the door, slipping around Scott's mother and the other very confused nurse. Allison grabbed the nurse's arm as she put the phone to her ear, dragging the bewildered woman away from the scene with a quiet _let's talk_. Melissa was too busy staring at Scott to notice, trying to determine what course of action was reasonable to take in this instance.

            "His infection," she said slowly. "It's supernatural, isn't it..." It was more a conclusion than a question, but they answered her anyway.

            Scott nodded at the same time as Peter. "We have to take him to the alpha that did it," he said in as close an approximation to the truth as he could get without having to explain everything. "She's the only one that can undo it. It's the only way to save him."

            "If we don't move now," Peter interjected. "He'll be dead in a day at the most."

            Melissa pursed her lips, looking between the two wolves, eyes falling to Stiles who was just staring up at all of them like he had no idea what was going on. His skin was ashen, the whites of his eyes red, and she could see black lines creeping up along the edge of his collarbone. It was the tiny nod of agreement from him that finally resolved her.

            "Okay," she said at last, nodding as well. "Okay, but, we're taking a van and neither of you are driving. And you," she said, pointing to Peter. "You're sitting up front with me. You have got some explaining to do."


	15. Chapter 15

            The leaf littered ground blurred beneath Derek's clawed hands as he ran, chest heaving, eyes blurred. It was hard to think past the consuming fear that he would be too late, that Stiles would not make it. That even if Derek located the alpha pack, he would not succeed in time. That maybe it was _already_ too late... but he shoved the thought from his mind.

            _Should never have marked him_

            The thought was insidious, squirming through every corner of his mind, rearing up to greet him any time he tried to run from it. He'd been so caught up in the moment that he hadn't even thought of the dangers. There should have been _time_ , he argued. It shouldn't have been an issue; there was no reason for Stiles to be near the alpha pack, no reason for any of the betas to challenge the mark. Not even Peter would do that.

            The sound of footsteps, rapid, raking, drew his attention outward once more and he threw a glance around himself. Someone was coming, someone was on his tail, so he slowed to an easy lope, shifting into full alpha form to be prepared to face the pack. If they wanted to try to sneak up on him they were going to get a surprise. They were going to get a face full of furious alpha claws.

            He was about to spin, to leap to his right and lay in to whoever was chasing him, when he caught scent of the other. Tension leaked from his muscles and he slowed further, glanced over to see Scott, wolfed-out and keeping pace with him.

            "You shouldn't be here," Derek told him, reverting back to his beta form.

            "You shouldn't be doing this alone," Scott replied. "Can you please wait?"

            "There's not time," Derek said, lengthening his stride.

            Scott snarled, barreled sideways until he could shoulder Derek off track, shove him into the broad trunk of an old tree. "Just _listen_ for once!" Scott shouted at him, the sound bouncing off into the woods around them. "Peter took Stiles!"

            "He _what_?!" Derek snarled furiously, shoving back at Scott, knocking him several steps backward. "And you just _let him_?!"

            "Derek!" Scott reprimanded, shoving both clawed hands into Derek's chest when he made to move past. "They're on their way here right now!"

            "Are you-" Derek bit off the end of the sentence, incredulous. "You've completely lost it! He'll destabilize!"

            "He'll _die_ if he's not here!" Scott cried. "We _had to_ , Derek! You just took off like an idiot, like you could fix it all by yourself- well, you _can't_. What you're doing would have killed Stiles, and you didn't know that because you ran off half-cocked like you don't even _have_ a pack to help you. Nice example, _alpha_."

            Derek snarled, but his doubt was almost overpowering and he could feel the anger leeching from him, replaced by fear. "Killed him?" he demanded.

            In that moment, Isaac, Erica, and Boyd reached the two of them, rustling to a halt at the edge of the clear space between trees. Isaac stepped forward as Derek backed away from Scott. "Did you tell him?"

            "Tell me what?" Derek asked, tipping his head to the side as he caught the sound of two vehicles off-roading their way toward the group. "What's going on here?"

            "Melissa and Peter are bringing Stiles in an ambulance, because he has to be here for the challenge," Scott told him levelly, features smoothing back to human. "Because you have to use _living_ blood from the defeated to break the challenge. Which you wouldn't have had if you killed her, or if she killed you."

            Derek swallowed, the meaning of the words sinking in hard. He would have killed Stiles. Not just played a part; he would have been directly responsible for ending any chance Stiles might have had at surviving this ordeal. "I didn't know," he breathed, backing away from Scott.

            "None of us did," Erica told him. "None of us knew, Derek, okay?"

            "But we're not going to let him just die," Isaac said firmly. "We can help you now. We're stronger as a pack."

            "He's our friend too," Scott reminded Derek. "He's been my friend a hell of a lot longer than he's been yours."

            Derek took a deep breath, let the reassurances of his pack wash over him. He hadn't done it; he hadn't doomed Stiles. Not yet anyway. His pack was here now. There were more on the way. He had the scent of the alphas, knew he was on the path to finding them tonight, to fix this, fix all of it. They would save Stiles together.

            "Scott, bring the ambulance to us," he said levelly. Scott nodded once, dropped to all fours as he sprung away from the group in the direction of the rumbling vehicles in the distance. Derek turned to the others. "Everyone else, we're scenting them out," he told them. "They're close, so keep up."

            The betas shifted, all of them agreeing with quick nods. Derek gave them all a once over before turning back to the scent trail he had been following. Kali's scent was still thick in the air, overlaid with the musky scent of the twins. He dropped to all fours, a deep satisfaction welling within him as his pack did the same behind him, ready.

            The trail was not hard to follow, as if they had laid it for the pack, as if they had wanted to be found. Derek thought perhaps they did, that perhaps Stiles had just been one more piece of bait to draw them out into the woods for a fight. The thought made his blood boil, made him sink sharp claws into the soil as he ran, letting the wolf course through his veins until he was wild with it.

            Boyd was the first to fall.

            The attack came from behind them, a dark form dropping down upon Boyd from above with a wicked snarl. Boyd rolled with the pounce, got his feet up fast enough to land a solid kick to the alpha's chest. It was not enough to dislodge the alpha, but it did grant Boyd enough space to use his claws, his teeth, to howl a warning to the others. Erica was at his side in an instant, leaping onto the alpha twin's back claws-first, sinking sharp teeth into his shoulder and _yanking_.

            Aiden howled, released Boyd as Ethan dropped from another tree, landing almost silently beside Isaac. Bristling, Isaac ducked under Ethan's broad swipe, dashed out of reach with a snarl of challenge. Derek was on Ethan a moment later, bowling him over through sheer force. Ethan's claws sank into both of Derek's shoulders as they fought.

            A few yards away, Kali emerged from the darkness, strolling forward in her full alpha form, her burnished coat shining in the dappled moonlight as she took stock of the two fights, of Isaac where he crouched at the ready, eyeing her. One little pup. Her jaws parted, baring clean, white fangs in a facsimile of a smile. Her bright red eyes were wild with triumph; this fight would be over quickly.

            "Enough!"

            The roar was loud enough, strong enough, that Kali halted in mid-crouch, dragged out of her bloodlust. To her left, Derek and Ethan had both gone fully alpha. They were panting, squaring off, Derek's shoulder reduced to ribbons of flesh, Ethan's face sporting a pair of nasty crescent wounds shaped remarkably like Derek's jaws. To her right, Aiden finally managed to shake off a startled Erica, his back dripping blackened blood in rivers from her attacks. She was almost instantly at Boyd's side then, standing shoulder to shoulder with him; he favored his left leg, Kali noted before turning to see their interruption.

            Deucalion stood beside one of the trees, the last vestiges of his alpha form melting away into full human. He was trusting them; both his pack to protect him and Derek's pack to honor the display. At his side stood Ennis, also human. Her lip curled in disdain. They were both idiots if they thought they were safe.

            But Derek was turning back, and his betas were following suit even as Aiden and Ethan withdrew, fragile human skin prickling up through their black fur. They were already healing, much faster than the betas were. If it came to another fight, the twins would definitely win. Kali let out a growl of frustration, but she backed away from the Beacon Hills pack as well. Then she cocked her head, ears flicking up to catch the sound of the approaching vehicles. They were close.

            "We could have finished them," Kali sneered, long jaw clacking as she spoke. "We could have _ended this_ tonight, Duke."

            He gave a derisive snort. "You assume I want it _ended_ ," he pointed out casually, his red eyes on Derek, who still stood at the ready. "You've invited a lot of guests to this party, Hale."

            "This doesn't concern you," Derek told him, low and deep. Even though he was human, his eyes were bright and crimson, his canines still long and dangerous. "This is between me and that bitch." Derek's eyes never left Kali, unflinching as she snapped long jaws at him at the insult.

            Deucalion chuckled, folding his arms across his chest and giving Derek a skeptical look. "You want to challenge my pack and you say it's none of my business?" he asked idly.

            Derek's lips peeled back from his fangs. " _She_ challenged _me_."

            A flicker of surprise crossed Deucalion's features and he looked over to Kali, who smirked. "I challenged his little alpha-mark," she told Deucalion smoothly. "He's very grouchy about it."

            A snarl escaped Derek and Kali answered just as loudly. "I'm going to rip you to _shreds!"_ he snapped at her.

" _Try it_ ," she challenged back, fur bristling.

            Deucalion roughed a growl at both of them, interrupting the incoming fight. Headlights flared over the group in that moment, just as Scott burst into the circle of werewolves and pulled up short beside Derek. It took only an instant for him to take in the situation, assess the wounds on both sides. He kept his claws out.

            "They're here," he said breathlessly.

           No one moved a muscle as the van ambulance nosed its way through the trees, headlights flooding the area with light, reflecting sharply off alpha and beta eyes alike. Behind it, like a sleek guardian, trailed a familiar, black SUV. Before either vehicle was fully stopped, doors began to open and people began to drop out of them; Melissa from the front of the ambulance, Allison, her father, and Jackson from the SUV. Jackson scooted immediately to the other betas, claws lengthening but face smooth. He _had_ been working on his control.

            Last to emerge, from the back of the ambulance, was Peter, carrying a limp body. Derek's nose lifted as the doors opened and despite his better judgment his eyes slid sideways to take in the sight of his uncle carrying Stiles up to the group, a worried Melissa hovering at his elbow like she thought he might drop the fragile human. All eyes were upon him as he came to a stop between the two groups of Beacon Hills denizens.

            "Peter Hale," Deucalion greeted smoothly, eyes locked on Peter's.

            Peter stared levelly back. "Deucalion," he returned. "How unfortunate to see you under these circumstances... again."

            A reminiscent smile bloomed on Deucalion's lips. "Still upset about that?" he asked softly, dropping his gaze for just a moment in slight abashment. "I did say I was sorry, but your sister was..." He paused extending the claws on one hand to examine them. "Convincing."

            "You should have stayed out of it," Peter told him icily.

            The idle, amused hum Deucalion gave the thought seemed to enrage Peter, whose eyes shifted golden. "What fun would that have been?"

            Taking a deep breath, Peter calmed himself, met Deucalion's gaze. "This is the boy who came to your _beta_ -" Kali bared her long teeth. "-to warn you that hunters had brought _aconitum vinculum_ here."

            Deucalion's gaze narrowed. "What?" he asked, threatening and low. The other alphas flinched slightly at the tone and realization lit Peter's golden eyes.

            "Ohhh," he said slowly, pleased. "They didn't tell you that."

            When Deucalion's gaze turned to her, a muscle in Kali's jaw jumped and she refused to meet his eyes. "It wasn't a problem," she bit out through clenched teeth. "I made sure it was destroyed."

            Brows rising in a silent _oh really_ , Deucalion turned to look at Ennis next. Ennis wouldn't meet his eyes either. "You didn't deem it important enough to _mention_?"

            Ennis clenched his jaw tight and Aiden took a step into Deucalion's line of sight. "What's aconitum vinculum?"

            "It's a form of wolfsbane," Peter volunteered, the only one to meet Deucalion's gaze when it was turned to him. "It allows humans to control werewolves. Within a few minutes of being dosed, you'd be performing for hunters like adorable lapdogs." He sneered the last word with condescension.

            Aiden's eyes widened and he glanced over to Ethan, who wore a similar look of surprise. Deucalion was just staring at Peter, eyes flickering down to take in the sight of the unconscious human in his arms. Everyone else waited tensely, claws and weapons at the ready in case it came to that. Again.

            "You damaged this human after he warned you?" Deucalion queried calmly of Kali, though his eyes never left Peter's. She huffed a rough noise of irritation, but nodded once. "This is your mess to fix. I would suggest fixing it peaceably, as an apology."

            Kali hackled at the remark, at Deucalion's clear withdrawal from the fight. Even outnumbered, their pack could have taken this group of wretched humans and wet-behind-the-ears werewolves. Instead, he was removing himself from the conflict, taking the pack with him. Kali was strong, but not strong enough to face them all alone. He was abandoning her to them, and for what? A mistake.

            "Duke-"

            " _Now_ , Kali," he snarled, and he clearly hadn't meant to give her a choice in the matter. She either settled this peaceably with the other pack in reconciliation for what she had done - and proved Deucalion's sway over her in front of them all in the process, how nice of him - or he would leave her to fend for herself. An alpha without a pack quickly became an omega, and she knew it.

            She rolled her crimson eyes, jaw wired shut with irritation, and began to stalk toward Peter and Stiles. Derek growled, transforming as he started toward her, and she stopped, looking at him out the corner of her eyes. "Do you want him to die?" she asked idly, as if asking if he wanted the sun to shine.

            "Let her," Peter said softly, eyes still locked on Deucalion.

            Derek stood tall then, on his haunches over her, eyes glowing red, fully alpha again. His teeth pulled back from long canines. "As a human," he ordered, voice low. He leaned over, bringing his long snout closer to hers. "If you hurt him, you're dead," he told her quietly, barely a breath. "I will ensure you feel every. second."

            She snorted and shouldered past him, but he let her because she was already transforming. By the time she reached Peter she was human and naked. She looked Peter in the eye and finally his attention shifted as he gauged her, trying to read if she were going to be honorable or-

            "Of course," Deucalion said, as if something had just occurred to him. "Perhaps you would like to consider a trade?" All eyes, even Kali's, turned to Deucalion, who merely shrugged languidly. "I mean, one measly, dying human's life in exchange for something you may find... valuable."

            "You have _nothing_ we want," Derek snapped.

            "Oh, I wouldn't be too sure about that." Deucalion smiled slyly. "Did you find yourselves... _missing_ anything after that little skirmish at the Ironworks?"

            Derek looked baffled but Scott's eyes widened because he had been the one to go back with Allison. "Gerard," he said under his breath; it was plenty loud enough for all the werewolves. Deucalion's smile only widened.

            "He's been... shall we say, _changing_ lately wouldn't you say?" he asked idly. "Bitten by an alpha, but corrupted!" The last he said with a little pleased shiver, as if he found the prospect exciting.

            "Why?" Scott asked before anyone else could speak up. "Why would you save him? Why would you let him live?"

            With the roll of one shoulder, Deucalion shrugged. "Oh, I had my plans," he informed Scott. "He hunted down my entire family like animals, murdered everyone I cared for... I'm sure I could come up with something for us to do together."

            "We don't want him," Derek said firmly. He didn't care what Deucalion had planned for Gerard; he probably deserved every second of it.

            "No?" Deucalion asked. "I suppose you'll have him anyway, when we set him free on your little town. After I'm through with him, he's bound to be so _sane._ "    

            Derek bristled and beside him Chris cocked his gun; the hiss of Allison's drawstring bowing was almost deafening. Across from them the alphas growled softly, ready to spring into action should a fight break out again. Only Deucalion and Peter remained without emotion, staring hard at one another with only Stiles and Kali between them.

           "No deal," Chris said, even though his voice shook, even though it wasn't his decision. He'd come here to save Stiles, because Allison had asked. He sure as hell wasn't going to let it be Derek's decision, what happened to the elder Argent. "Fix the boy. We'll deal with my father when we have to."

            Deucalion's gaze shifted slowly to Chris, as if realizing who he was, who stood before their group to defend the werewolves and their dying human. Then, so slowly, he nodded once, acquiesced to the demand. "As you please, then. By all means, Kali, carry on."

            "Every second," Derek told her as she reached one hand up, her claws lengthening from three of her fingertips.

            Without hesitation, she dug her claws into the skin of her shoulder, drawing them out coated in dark blood. This she moved to Stiles' skin, pressed her claws into the festering, exposed wounds by his heart. Even unconscious he flinched at touch, at the way the flesh hissed with the contact. The ugly, black webbing that had been spreading under his skin began to dissipate, the discoloration of infection shriveling until the wound was clean around her fingertips. Slowly, she withdrew her claws. Though the wounds did not close, they looked  better, cleaner, healthier.

            Then, face morphing, she lunged for Stiles' shoulder.

           Peter was faster, dipping Stiles down away from her, his own face changing as he snapped at her throat. She snarled, pulling back, stepping back even as Derek's clawed hands hit her full force from the side.

            "No!" Deucalion ordered when the twins made to help her. "The human's safe," he said loudly to Peter, over the sounds of the snapping, snarling fight between the alphas. He shrugged. "Enough, anyway."

            "Thank you," Peter told him levelly, gesturing down with just his eyes to the still unconscious Stiles in his arms.

            "Nothing comes for free." Deucalion smirked, turning away. "We'll be seeing you."

            With that he threw himself forward, morphing so that his hands were huge, clawed paws when they hit the ground, and he took off running. Ennis followed without hesitation, the twins joining them reluctantly. Their disappearance seemed to snap the group back to reality, unafraid now that the other alphas had abandoned their wayward friend.

            Scott dove in first, grabbing onto Kali from behind, sinking his claws in through her ribs as she rolled past him. She _howled_ , disengaged from a furious Derek to whip around and claw at Scott. Boyd and Jackson were grabbing hold of Derek as Erica ushered Peter back toward the ambulance. Isaac dashed to help Scott, drawing Kali away from Derek. Her eyes were glazed with bloodlust, not recognizing for a moment where she was until the lithe duo got far enough away from her.

            She hesitated, threw a crimson gaze around the forest, came up empty handed. She froze, realizing she was alone. Derek gnashed a horrible, deep-throated growl at her, throwing off both Jackson and Boyd before falling to all fours. But he didn't strike, didn't resume the fight.

            "You're alone," Scott called out, drawing her attention. "Go."

            She bared her long teeth at him, but she backed away from them, maneuvered so that she could face all of them. Blood matted her fur, dripped into one of her eyes and she gave a brusque shake of her head to clear it.

            "Get out," Derek told her, threatening and low. His own skin was crossed with claw streaks, cracked bones sticking through the open bite wound over his lower ribs. His labored breath gurgled wetly in his chest. "Come near my pack again, and I'll make sure you don't walk away from it."

            "I won't be alone next time," she spat, muzzle bloody inside and out. "Your little _pack_ won't stand a chance."

            Derek lunged forward, false starting, and she flinched just the tiniest bit. Satisfied, his lips pulled back from his teeth in a cold, vicious smile. "Don't test me tonight. You're lucky to be alive."

            Teeth gleamed in the moonlight. "I could say the same for you," she told him, but she turned away from the group, burnished fur melting into the darkness of the forest as she followed her pack.

            The back door to the ambulance slammed, startling all of them. Melissa rubbed her hands together nervously, looked around the group. "You folks never do anything low-key," she said lightly. "We should get back to the hospital... Stiles isn't out of the woods yet and... well, to be honest most of you are not looking so hot either."

            Her eyes flickered to Scott and then to Derek where he wobbled on his feet. She couldn't thank him for leaving Scott out of it.

            "She's right," Chris said. "Let's get everyone home safe."

            As if it were a cue, as if he were released from having to take charge, to keep protecting the pack, Derek allowed himself to collapse to the forest floor.

 

* * *

 

 

            When she caught up to the pack as they loped through the forest, Deucalion slowed, allowed her to come up alongside him. He could smell her blood, thick and coppery in the air and it made him smile. "Kali," he greeted as she lengthened her stride to keep his pace, glaring ahead of them.

            "You left me to die," she accused him coldly.

            He scoffed. "Die?" he asked. "Hale boys have always been soft."

            A low growl roughed her throat. "He didn't feel soft when he was tearing into my chest," she told him. "Maybe you're the soft one, letting them just _leave_."

            She yelped when he turned upon her, bowling her over on his next stride, pinning her to the forest floor with huge, clawed paws. His eyes shone a bright, angry red and the others skidded to a stop around them. "Say that again, Kali," he snapped at her. "Tell me I'm _soft_ again and I'll show you what it means to be sharp."

            "I'm sorry," she gasped, the wind knocked out of her from the force of his attack. "Duke, I'm sorry."

            His lips peeled back from his teeth, but he snorted and let her up again. "So that all of you are aware- yes, we could have fought them today. We probably would have beaten them, before the hunters showed up, with their wolfsbane bullets. Instead, we learned something from them, something _very_ valuable indeed."

            "That they're friends with hunters?" Aiden guessed.

            Duke smirked. "That they have a weakness," he told them. Kali scowled, because she knew what he meant, what he was about to say, and he was _right_. "That little human boy, the one their alpha marked... oh yes, he'll be useful to us later. Much more useful than a full-scale, showdown battle at the quarter moon."

            He dropped back to all fours then, his deep laughter ringing through the forest around them as he bounded off into the darkness, Ennis and Aiden on his heels. Kali glanced to Ethan, who shared her look of concern before she rolled onto her belly, clambered to her feet. Ethan bumped her shoulder.

            "Gotta admit... he's a clever bastard," Ethan told her softly. Then he, too, was bounding after their pack, disappearing from sight.

            That, she thought to herself as she tailed him, was entirely the problem.

 

* * *

 

 

            The soft, steady beat of a heart monitor woke Stiles, coaxed him out of the darkness of sleep, into the dimly lit hospital room. He felt like hell still, tired and aching, but he didn't feel _sick_. He didn't feel fevered, didn't feel like he might fall apart. The darkness wouldn't be taking him against his will this time, and that was the best he'd felt in a week. Cracking his eyes open, he settled his gaze on the form slumped over the side of his bed, head against his thigh, fingers curled into Stiles' like they would never let go.

            "Hey," Stiles said hoarsely.

            Derek lifted his head, giving Stiles' hand a little squeeze. "Hey."

            Stiles smiled. "You look like shit."

            A small huff of laughter escaped Derek, because his face was clawed and stitched, his neck had a ragged, stitched up bite wound, and there were a dozen other injuries Stiles couldn't see, but he was still better off than Stiles had been the day before. "Speak for yourself," he said softly. "How d'you feel?"

            "Oh, just peachy," Stiles told him, though his exhaustion was evident in his tone. "What happened?"

            "We got into a little fight with the alpha pack," Derek replied, resting his head back on Stiles' thigh. His words were a little slurred and Stiles wondered if werewolves could keep their bodies from purging drugs like they could keep themselves from healing. "You've got a fan club. Even the Argents showed up." He chuckled, breathy and tired. "Melissa drove you to the fight in an ambulance through the woods with Peter."

            Stiles closed his eyes, not bothering to try to stop the soft laugh that bubbled up from his chest. "You're joking, oh my god. What happened?"

            "Peter convinced everyone to show up to save you," Derek informed him, thumb stroking over his hand. "And... it was weird. Deucalion just... made Kali surrender. He and Peter were having a stand off or something. Peter won't talk about it. He says... Deucalion _owed_ him."

            For a moment Stiles' brows knitted in thought. "Well, that'll probably come back to bite us later." Then he chuckled because he'd said bite to a werewolf and, yeah, the drugs were a little thick in his system still.

            Derek leaned over, kissed the back of Stiles' hand. "I don't even care right now," he said, clambering mostly to his feet. "What matters right now is that you're alive." He leaned over, brushed noses with Stiles before kissing him so, so softly, like it was all that mattered, like he was scared the chance would still be taken from him if he wasn't careful.

            When he paused, Stiles raised one hand, rested it along the nape of his neck, fingers threading into his hair. They rested their foreheads against one another's, just breathing, taking comfort in each others heartbeats. Derek had very nearly begun climbing into the bed to kiss him again when a throat cleared in the doorway and they both looked to see Melissa standing there.

            "I'd better not catch you in that bed again, Mr. Hale," she told him, frowning.

            Derek looked guilty and Stiles gave her his best pleading face. "Didn't you know werewolves can help people heal?"

            "Oh, is that so?" she asked him, clearly not believing. But she rolled her eyes and pointed between the two of them. "You've got fifteen minutes until I'm back. You'd better not still be in that bed."

            She disappeared from the doorway as a grin spread over Derek's lips. Stiles scooted to one side of the bed as Derek crawled in with him, wrapping one arm around Stiles' waist. Rolling onto his side, Stiles let Derek pull him flush up against him, careful of the medical equipment. With Stiles tucked up against him, Derek buried his nose in the back of Stiles' neck and let out a heavy sigh. Stiles smiled, closing his eyes, because he could feel the tension leeching out of the werewolf, feel him relaxing.

            On some level, Stiles knew they were not out of the woods yet. There was still danger. There were still things out there that he knew he should be scared out of his mind about, things he knew they would all have to deal with before long. But here, wrapped up in Derek, the beat of his heart against his skin, the warmth of his breath tickling at the back of his neck, Stiles felt _safe_.

            And whatever was coming, he decided as he relaxed, it was so, so worth this.


	16. Epilogue

            Golden afternoon sunlight streamed in through the window, the shadow of the cross-hatch falling across the skin of Derek's bare back. One of his arms lay bent over Stiles' belly, his fingers splayed on Stiles' chest, his thumb stroking the three soft, pink scars over his heart. Stiles' cheek was warm against the top of his head, his fingers curled around Derek's elbow. Derek closed his eyes, soaking in the beat of Stiles' heart beneath his skin. This was _right_. This was _home_.

            Stiles rubbed his cheek once, slowly, over Derek's hair, eyes tracing patterns on the wall across the room, lost in warm, hazy thought. His fingertips still tingled, the last lingering effect of their activities. He would have to rouse Derek to clean up in a moment... but that was still a moment away, and it was a moment he intended to fully enjoy. School would start again in a week or so and they would be hard-pressed to find time to see one another like this then.

            It had been a beautiful summer in Beacon Hills. The alphas had left them alone and they had seen neither hide nor hair of Gerard yet. Deaton had started teaching Lydia as well as Stiles about some of the Celtic magics that he knew, had them drawing runes together Sunday mornings when the clinic was closed. Together they had taken an hour scribing the rune for 'truth' onto all of Allison's arrows; she had not missed a bulls-eye since.

            Jackson was really the only trouble they'd had; he had skipped town last week, leaving just a note about how he would be back, that he needed some time. Stiles thought it was bullshit, but there was nothing any of them could do. Lydia was crushed, but it really only made her work harder. Deaton had told them she could scry for him once she learned enough. Stiles thought she would murder him for refusing to do it for her, but he also thought he knew why. Deaton was giving Jackson the time he wanted, and proving to Lydia what she already knew; that she was fantastic as her own person.

            In all, Stiles thought as he stroked his thumb over the bone in Derek's elbow, things had turned out all right once again. If things were not exactly normal, at least they were quiet. Familiar. There was really only one thing he didn't have, and he had spent the week working up the courage to ask. There had been no pressure, no questions; he wasn't sure what Derek would think of his request, but he had decided he was going to make it anyway.

            "Hey..." he said softly, shifting his shoulder under Derek's head just a little. Derek grumbled and pressed his nose into Stiles' collarbone. "Hey, c'mon, Derek. I- I have question."

            Derek grumbled again, because Stiles always had questions, because Stiles always had more words to say than anyone else Derek knew. Even if they were usually relevant that didn't mean they were necessary, especially at these times, when everything was so perfectly quiet and comfortable and sleepy.

            "What?" He heard the click of Stiles' throat and he lifted his head, looked the human in the eyes with concern. "Is something wrong?"

            "No!" Stiles said quickly, eyes widening. "No, I just... I was just wondering if you could... mark me." His voice dropped on the last two words, thinking how silly it sounded out loud like that. "I mean, now that the other ones have healed. Mostly. I thought maybe... it's ok, you know, just forget it. I probably shouldn't have brought it-"

            "Stiles," Derek said, interrupting him. Stiles' jaw clicked shut and he stared at Derek. "Are you sure?"

            "Yeah, I mean... yeah, of course I'm sure," Stiles said, like it was obvious, like Derek could read minds and should know. "It's just you never asked..."

            "You almost died," Derek reminded him. Stiles could actually _hear_ the regret, could hear the way Derek blamed himself for that close call.

            Bringing both hands up, he cupped Derek's jaw and met his gaze. "That wasn't your fault," he told him firmly. "And okay, you shouldn't have marked me without my permission, but you also couldn't have known what was going to happen. Now I'm asking. Now I'm ready."

           Swallowing thickly, Derek shifted, sat up so that he could straddle Stiles' thighs, rest his forearms on Stiles' shoulders. "Okay," he said. "You remember what I told you before, about accepting it?"

            "Yeah," Stiles assured him, smiling brightly. "It's totally not like I spent a million hours since then thinking about it. C'mon. Mark me."

            Derek rolled his eyes, but he bowed slowly, pressed his lips to Stiles' skin over his collarbone, just above where the last mark had been, just above the scars. He licked over the intended space once, set his teeth to Stiles' skin, blunt and human, drawing blood to the surface. Stiles made a thin, reedy noise at the back of his throat.

            The physical mark would last a few days before fading, but this time he threaded his heart's will into the action, felt the stirring of a bond take hold inside of him, one that would last until one of them broke it. He wondered if Stiles could feel it too, but he didn't ask. He simply sat back, red eyes fading back to blue as they locked on Stiles' golden-brown ones.

            Stiles looked down, side-eyed the mark. "That's it?" he asked. "My turn?"

            When Derek gave a slight, hesitant nod, Stiles smiled again. He raised two fingers to his lips, pressed a kiss onto them. He closed his eyes, imagining as Derek had told him, that there was a thread to be bound from the kiss to the mark as he pressed his fingers over the fresh bruise. It zapped like static shock when his fingers touched his skin, but he was ready for that, did not withdraw, and an instant later he felt it. A cool, pleasant presence within him that he recognized as not himself. It was Derek, happy and worried, patient and totally, completely in love.

            Stiles opened his eyes, looked up to Derek. "Wow," he said, breathless.

            Derek let out the breath he was holding and Stiles felt a wave of warmth wash over him. "It's pretty strong at first," Derek told him softly. "Especially when we're touching."

            "Oh," Stiles replied. "Oh, I want to do _all_ the touching, Derek."

            Laughing, Derek bent to kiss him, crushing their lips together happily. His joy echoed back in Stiles, who grabbed at his jaw, drew him closer, pressed up into him so that Derek had to catch himself on the bed or topple over. "Stiles!" he chided, but it was lost in the shared smiles, in the way Stiles kissed him again, like he had never been allowed to before, like he might never get a chance again.

            When he paused, it was only to press his forehead to Derek's, to smile mischievously. "Think you're up to cementing this whole bond thing with me?" he asked, wriggling his hips beneath Derek's, scraping his nails lightly down Derek's chest and relishing in the echo of pleasure that passed between them.

            Derek groaned at the prospect, because yes, he really, really did think he was up to it. He was up to anything Stiles asked of him, because when it came to Stiles, Derek really was just helpless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, everyone that is still here, for sticking this out until the end. Hoping this ending makes up for all the pain and suffering?? Eek! Anyway thank you again for reading!


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